Stack IA del Ingeniero en Windows

What's in this pack

This is the rig a working engineer on Windows 10 or 11 would build on a fresh box in one evening — not a Reddit thread of 40 random utilities. Every pick is actively maintained, scriptable, and plays nicely with AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot — anything that can call a shell or an MCP server).

The pack is deliberately Windows-native-first. WSL shows up, but as a peer to PowerShell and Win32, not as a way to pretend you're on Linux. If the answer is "just use macOS", that's a different pack — this one is for engineers who chose Windows on purpose (gaming rig, work-issued laptop, Surface, Arm64 Snapdragon, GPU box) and want it to feel as automatable as a Unix workstation.

Install in this order

1. WinGet — Microsoft's official package manager. Already shipped on Win10 1809+ and Win11. Start here because every later tool can be installed with winget install --id <id> and you'll want one canonical install path before you start scripting.
2. Scoop — bucket-based portable installer. Complements WinGet rather than replacing it: Scoop excels at command-line developer tools (jq, ripgrep, fd, sd) that drop straight into ~/scoop/shims with no admin prompt. Use WinGet for GUI apps, Scoop for CLI utilities.
3. Windows Terminal — modern GPU-accelerated terminal with tabs, panes, profiles. This is where PowerShell, CMD, WSL, and SSH all live in one window. Bind a Ctrl+\`` global hotkey via "globals.keybindings"` to summon it quickedrop-style — single biggest QoL win.
4. WezTerm (optional alt) — GPU-accelerated terminal configured in Lua, with built-in SSH multiplexing and image protocols. Pick either Windows Terminal or WezTerm; only run both if you want WezTerm for SSH-heavy days and Windows Terminal for Windows-native sessions.
5. PowerShell 7 — cross-platform pwsh. Don't settle for the built-in powershell.exe (5.1, Windows-only, no module updates). winget install Microsoft.PowerShell gets you pwsh, which AI agents can invoke identically on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
6. PowerToys — Microsoft's productivity utility suite. Turn on PowerToys Run (Alt+Space launcher), FancyZones (snap windows to a custom grid), Keyboard Manager (remap Caps Lock → Esc or Ctrl), and Always On Top. Don't turn on everything — pick the four above and ignore the rest until you miss them.
7. GlazeWM — i3-style tiling window manager. Once you've used FancyZones for two weeks and gotten tired of dragging windows into zones, GlazeWM auto-tiles everything. Lives alongside PowerToys without conflict if you scope hotkeys cleanly (Alt+1..9 for GlazeWM workspaces, Win+arrow for FancyZones snap).
8. AutoHotkey — the Windows answer to Hammerspoon. Bind CapsLock & j/k/l/; to arrow keys, build a Pomodoro HUD, fire a webhook on idle, glue anything to anything. AutoHotkey v2 is the version to learn (v1 syntax is being phased out).
9. Espanso — Rust-based text expander. Type :llm and get a 200-word Claude prompt; type :gpr and get your git PR template. Cross-platform config in YAML, syncable via git. Lower learning curve than AutoHotkey for the 80% of cases where you just want "type this when I type that".
10. Windows-MCP — Model Context Protocol server that lets agents control Windows apps, UI, and files. Install with uvx windows-mcp and wire it into Claude Code or Codex. This is the AI-stack tie-in: once your shell, windows, and clipboard are scripted, an MCP-aware agent can drive the whole rig.

How they fit together

WinGet ───────┐
              ├─→ install everything else
Scoop ────────┘     (GUI via WinGet, CLI via Scoop)

Windows Terminal  (or WezTerm)
        │
        ├─ tab: PowerShell 7 (pwsh)
        ├─ tab: WSL 2 (Ubuntu / Debian)
        ├─ tab: CMD (rare, only for legacy .bat)
        └─ tab: SSH to dev box / GPU server

PowerToys (PT Run, FancyZones, Keyboard Mgr)  ⟵  GlazeWM (auto-tile)
        │                                              │
        └─── both bound under Win+...  /  Alt+... ────┘
             (don't double-bind — pick one per hotkey)

AutoHotkey  ──┐
              ├─ glue layer: Hyper-style remaps, global hooks,
              │  Pomodoro HUDs, screenshot pipelines, webhooks
Espanso ──────┘     (Espanso for text expansion only,
                     AHK for everything else)

Windows-MCP (uvx)
        │
        └─→ Claude Code / Codex / Cursor — agent drives desktop
            via screenshot + click + keyboard + file APIs

The four-tool combo Windows Terminal + PowerShell 7 + AutoHotkey + Windows-MCP is the inflection point: at that moment your dev box stops feeling like "Windows with tools bolted on" and starts feeling like a single AI-driven workstation. Don't skip PowerShell 7 — without pwsh, every cross-platform script you copy from Claude has to be rewritten.

Tradeoffs you'll hit

• WSL 2 vs native Win32 — WSL 2 is fast, has real apt, and Linux dev workflows port over almost free. The catch: filesystem perf across the WSL ↔ Windows boundary is terrible (10-100x slower). Rule of thumb: code stays on the side where the tool runs. Node project? Keep it in ~/projects/ inside WSL, not in /mnt/c/Users/.... C# / .NET / game dev? Stay native.
• WinGet vs Scoop vs Chocolatey — WinGet ships with Windows, Scoop is best for CLI tools (no admin prompts), Chocolatey has the deepest catalog but heavier and admin-only. The pack picks WinGet+Scoop because together they cover ~98% of dev tools with zero admin nags for the CLI side.
• PowerToys FancyZones vs GlazeWM — FancyZones is opt-in per drag (you choose when to snap). GlazeWM tiles automatically (every new window joins the layout). Run both: FancyZones for monitor-spanning code review zones, GlazeWM for tab-heavy workspaces.
• AutoHotkey vs PowerShell scripts — AHK lives at the input layer (intercept Caps Lock, fire on hotkey, click coordinates). PowerShell lives at the process/file layer (manage services, parse JSON, hit APIs). Don't use either for the other's job — AHK loops doing HTTP are painful; PowerShell hotkeys via Register-EngineEvent are flaky.
• Windows Terminal vs WezTerm — Windows Terminal has the best Windows integration (notifications, jumplist, Quake mode). WezTerm has better SSH multiplexing, better font rendering on high-DPI, and Lua config. Most engineers default to Windows Terminal and keep WezTerm for SSH-heavy days. Pick one as default; don't agonize.

Common pitfalls

• WSL 2 filesystem perf — npm install in /mnt/c/... is 30x slower than in ~/. If your dev workflow feels broken, this is usually why. Move the repo into WSL's native ext4 partition.
• Path translation between WSL and Windows — wslpath -w ~/file converts a WSL path to C:\Users\...\file for handoff to a Windows tool, and wslpath -u reverses it. Memorize these two; they save hours.
• AutoHotkey v1 vs v2 syntax — almost every script on the open web is v1. Don't paste blindly into AHK v2 — syntax is different (Send, foo vs Send("foo")). Pick v2 for new scripts; convert old ones with the official v1-to-v2 converter.
• PowerToys auto-update breaking GlazeWM hotkeys — every PowerToys update can re-enable modules you disabled. If GlazeWM workspaces stop responding, check whether PT FancyZones grabbed Alt+1..9 again.
• PowerShell execution policy — pwsh.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File foo.ps1 is the AI-agent-friendly invocation. Default Restricted policy will silently refuse to run .ps1 files and make it look like your script is broken.
• Windows-MCP needs the foreground window — agent-driven UI automation can't click a window that's behind another. Either bring the target to front before sending input, or use the headless file/registry APIs instead.
• Defender SmartScreen on first launch — Scoop, GlazeWM, AutoHotkey scripts can all trip SmartScreen on first run. Right-click → Properties → Unblock, or Unblock-File in PowerShell. Don't disable SmartScreen globally — unblock per file.