The Taku Blog
Ideas worth building on.
Stories, product notes, and perspectives on how AI gets discovered, used, remixed, and shared.
September 7, 2026
Claude Code MCP Server Configuration Explained
How to add MCP servers to Claude Code: the three scopes, four transports, where config lives, and the precedence rule that explains duplicate servers.
September 7, 2026
Claude Code Plugins: What They Bundle
Claude Code plugins bundle skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers into one shareable unit. What goes where, how to test locally, and when not to.
September 7, 2026
Claude Code in VS Code: Install and Shortcuts
How to add Claude Code to VS Code: extension vs CLI, plan review, @-mentions with line ranges, shortcuts, and setup in Cursor and other VS Code forks.
September 7, 2026
Claude Desktop: What It Does That the Website Doesn't
Claude Desktop runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux and is free to install. What each of its three tabs does, and which parts need a paid plan.
September 7, 2026
Claude on Linux: Desktop Beta, the CLI, and WSL
Claude Desktop for Linux is a Debian-only beta. Which distributions it supports, what's missing from it, and why the CLI covers far more ground.
September 7, 2026
Claude Voice Mode: Where It Works and How to Start
Claude voice mode is a beta feature on every plan, across mobile, desktop, and web. How to start it, which voices you get, and its real limits.
September 7, 2026
Claude Web Search: The App, the API, and Claude Code
Claude searches the web and cites sources. Which plans include it, how the API's web_search tool is priced and filtered, and why it sometimes won't.
September 7, 2026
Is Claude Open Source? Where the Line Falls
Claude and Claude Code are proprietary, but Anthropic's API SDKs are MIT and MCP is an open standard. Exactly where the line falls, and why it blurs.
September 7, 2026
Is Claude Pro Worth It? Free vs Pro, Compared
Claude Pro adds usage headroom and unlocks Claude Code, Cowork, and Design. Whether that's worth it depends on one question — do you write code with it?
September 5, 2026
Best MCP Clients: What to Use and How to Judge One
A practical guide to MCP clients — the host-versus-client distinction, which apps support what, and the four things that decide whether a server works in yours.
September 5, 2026
Claude Desktop Alternatives: Pick by What You Replace
Claude Desktop is an MCP host, a chat window, and a subscription in one app. The right alternative depends on which of the three you want to swap.
September 5, 2026
GPT Store Alternatives: Where AI Tools Get Distributed Now
OpenAI's developer docs now describe plugins in a universal directory shared by ChatGPT and Codex. Here's what that means and where else AI capability is published.
September 5, 2026
LM Studio vs Ollama: They Stopped Being the Same Tool
LM Studio is now an agent product; Ollama is a runtime other tools plug into. Both have a cloud path. How to pick, and what changed since the last comparison you read.
September 5, 2026
Notion AI Alternatives: You're Buying Context, Not a Model
Notion AI's advantage is that it can already see your workspace. That means the right alternative depends on where your content lives, not which model is best this month.
September 5, 2026
Ollama Alternatives: Local Model Runners Compared
Ollama now offloads some models to its own cloud. Here's what that changes, and which alternative fits if you want a GUI, a serving stack, or genuinely local inference.
September 5, 2026
Open WebUI vs LibreChat: The Licence Is the Decision
Both are self-hosted ChatGPT replacements with agents, MCP and multi-provider routing. The difference that actually decides it is what each licence lets you do at scale.
September 5, 2026
Perplexity Alternatives: Sorted by What You Actually Search For
Answer engines are a search index, a model and a citation habit. The right Perplexity alternative depends on which of the three you're unhappy with.
September 5, 2026
Raycast Alternatives: Launchers, Extensions, and the AI Layer
Raycast bundles a launcher, an extension store and a cloud AI subscription. Alternatives exist for each part — and Raycast is no longer Mac-only, which changes the shortlist.
September 5, 2026
Raycast vs Alfred: A Cloud Platform vs a Local Mac App
The two launchers have diverged. Raycast is becoming a cross-platform AI platform with an account behind it; Alfred stays a local macOS app you buy once. That's the choice.
September 4, 2026
AI App Builders Compared: What You're Left Holding
Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit, Base44 and Manus all turn prompts into software. They differ on the artifact you keep and what leaving costs — compare on that.
September 4, 2026
AI Coding Assistants Compared: Four Shapes, Not One Ranking
Extensions, AI-first editors, coding agents, and autonomous agents solve different problems. Pick the shape that matches your work before comparing features.
September 4, 2026
AutoGen Alternatives: Where to Go Now It's in Maintenance Mode
AutoGen's own repository says it's in maintenance mode with no new features. Microsoft named a successor, and there are three other credible directions.
September 4, 2026
Base44 vs Lovable: Two All-In-One Builders, One Now Owned by Wix
Base44 and Lovable both generate a full-stack app from a prompt with the backend included. Ownership, coupling, and where each one takes you differ.
September 4, 2026
Bolt Alternatives: 7 Options When the Browser IDE Isn't Enough
Bolt gives you a real dev environment in the browser and leaves the backend to you. If that's the problem — or the credits are — here's where to go.
