Feb 23
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In this AMA livestream, Viktor and Scott field a wide range of questions from the community covering AI in DevOps, agent skills, platform engineering, and tooling preferences. They discuss why agent skills—essentially markdown files—don't need traditional testing but instead evolve through real-world usage, and they explore how to approach scanning repositories for actionable insights using summarized documentation and vector databases rather than dumping entire codebases into an LLM. The conversation dives into the long-term impact of AI on DevOps, with both hosts agreeing that agents will become the primary interface for operations while existing tools like Kubernetes, Terraform, and Backstage will persist, albeit with new agent-friendly interfaces such as MCPs and CLIs. The duo also tackles practical topics including migrating large-scale Terraform setups to Crossplane, the role of Rust and Go in DevOps tooling, and why replacing GitOps tools like Argo CD or Flux with GitHub Actions alone is a bad idea. They share career advice for junior developers, debate when a company truly needs an internal developer platform, and weigh in on the state of tools like Backstage, Nomad, Consul, and OpenStack. Throughout, Viktor and Scott offer candid, often humorous takes on everything from enterprise LLM agreements and log security to the enduring relevance of mainframes. ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⏱ Timecodes ⏱ ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 00:00 Intro (skip to first question) 05:43 How do you perform agent skill testing? 12:10 How to scan all repos and suggest skills/MCPs? 15:19 How is Rust used in DevOps? 18:22 Scan all commits to identify CI/CD opportunities? 18:45 Forcing LLMs to write real Playwright tests? 20:07 Migrating 10K resources from Terraform to Crossplane? 23:37 Interconnected markdown context for agent skills? 24:26 Junior dev: what to focus on earlier in career? 29:02 New hire director wants to ban Argo CD for GitHub Actions 31:38 What does AI change in DevOps long term? 38:42 AI skill for creating IDP using Backstage? 41:07 Crossplane composition with external JSON URL refresh? 43:06 Can Backstage API support a CLI to replace UI? 49:19 Free open source replacement for Octopus Deploy? 53:06 AI recommendations for teams managing EKS and Terraform? 55:57 Where to start with AI in DevOps on-prem? 57:28 What problem signals a company truly needs an IDP? 01:02:08 Trust level in public LLMs analyzing cluster logs? 01:03:23 Should a late bloomer use AI for DevOps? 01:03:31 Do you remember OpenStack? Did it die? 01:04:06 Is CNCF adopting domain-based control plane projects?