Use-case stack · makers, embedded

Coding & firmware

Ship Arduino/ESP32/PlatformIO projects faster with AI pair programmers — without trusting blind flashes.

Rule: LLM proposes, you compile, measure, and flash. Keep secrets out of prompts.

Preferred / primary

App / desktop Coding

Cursor

AI-first code editor (VS Code lineage) for multi-file refactors and agents.

In this stack: Multi-file refactors and agent passes on app code.

Details Site

Hybrid Coding

PlatformIO + LLM workflow

Not a chat product — the PlatformIO toolchain paired with an LLM for ESP32/Arduino triage.

In this stack: Build system of record for ESP32/Arduino; LLM only assists.

Details Site

Strong alternatives

App / desktop Coding

Windsurf

AI-native IDE/agent workflow competitor in the Cursor-class space.

In this stack: Another strong agentic IDE option.

Details Site

Hybrid Coding

Continue.dev

Open-source coding assistant that can point at local or cloud models.

In this stack: When you want local models in the IDE.

Details Site

Hybrid Coding

Cline / Roo-style agents

VS Code agent extensions that can plan, edit, and run tools with human approval gates.

In this stack: Supervised agents inside VS Code with approval gates.

Details Site

Hybrid Coding

Aider

CLI pair-programmer that commits git diffs with LLMs.

In this stack: Terminal + git commit workflow.

Details Site

Supporting tools

Web Coding

Phind

Developer-oriented search/chat for errors, APIs, and how-tos.

In this stack: API/error search when docs are unfamiliar.

Details Site

Web LLM / chat

Claude

Anthropic models strong at long-context writing, code review, and careful analysis.

In this stack: Long log triage and careful code review.

Details Site

Web LLM / chat

DeepSeek

Strong cost/performance chat and coding models popular for technical work.

In this stack: Cost-effective coding chat alternative.

Details Site

Web LLM / chat

ChatGPT

OpenAI’s mainstream chat + tools product for writing, code, and analysis.

In this stack: Quick snippets and error decoding.

Details Site

Web LLM / chat

Mistral Le Chat

European-rooted models with strong coding/multilingual chat and a clean web product.

In this stack: Strong general coding help outside the US-cloud default.

Details Site

Self-hosted LLM / chat

Ollama

Simplest path to run open models locally (CLI + local API).

In this stack: Offline assist on the bench laptop.

Details Site

App / desktop Coding

Amazon Q Developer

AWS-oriented coding assistant (successor lineage to CodeWhisperer).

In this stack: If the project lives in AWS land.

Details Site

Stacks are editorial starting points — swap tools when policy, budget, or hardware demands it.