Six months from now half of these abstractions will have been renamed or removed once real users push back on the cognitive overhead. Google has a pattern of releasing infrastructure that's perfectly shaped for Googles problems and awkward for everyone else's
I think most of the legacy companies that can benefit from Kubernetes don't use it, while most of the companies that are using it are startups doing it for the résumé.
k8s is simple because it offload some key tasks to 3rd party like network and storage; it is not easy to: a) setup and maintain a k8s cluster with all necessary components from at least a dozen different sources b) design your application to be k8s native
The same way linux isn't. It's easy to start, all the base modifications/configurations are fairly simple, and if you find yourself deep into custom ways of using it, it's open source and fairly well documented with a large community.
I'm looking forward to trying this. I've had a positive but high-variance experience with Gastown[1], which is in the same genre. I hope that Scion does better.
My main complaints with Gastown are that (1) it's expensive, partly because (2) it refuses to use anything but Claude models, in spite of my configuration attempts, (3) I can't figure out how to back up or add a remote to its beads/dolt bug database, which makes me afraid to touch the installation, and (4) upgrading it often causes yak shaving and lost context. These might all be my own skill issues, but I do RTFM.
But wow, Gastown gets results. There's something magic about the dialogue and coordination between the mayor and the polecats that leads to an even better experience than Claude Code alone.
> This project is early and experimental. Core concepts are settled, but expect rough edges. Local mode: relatively stable - Hub-based workflows: ~80% verified - Kubernetes runtime: early with known rough edges
i guess gastown is a better choice for now? idk i don't feel good about "relatively stable"
I swore to not be burned by google ever again after TensorFlow. This looks cool, and I will give this to my Codex to chew on and explain if it fits (or could fit what I am building right now -- the msx.dev) and then move on. I don't trust Google with maintaining the tools I rely on.
I want to experiment more with agents but my employer only pays for Claude Code, and TOS disallows using the subscription API for other purposes. Anyone else in the same boat? Token based pricing also gets expensive fast.
Their agent tooling is shaping up to be the well known issue of product cancellation. They have how many different takes on this now? (gemini-cli, antigravity, AI studio, this, Gemini app)
I've not been impressed with any of them. I do use their ADK in my custom agent stack for the core runtime. That one I think is good and has legs for longevity.
The main enterprise problem here is getting the various agent frameworks to play nice. How should one have shared runtimes, session clones, sandboxes, memory, etc between the tooling and/or employees?
Not if you go custom, you have unlimited latitude, examples...
I modified file_read/write/edit to put the contents in the system prompt. This saves context space, i.e. when it rereads a file after failed edit, even though it has the most recent contents. It also does not need to infer modified content from read+edits. It still sees the edits as messages, but the current actual contents are always there.
My AGENTS.md loader. The agent does not decide, it's deterministic based on what other files/dirs it has interacted with. It can still ask to read them, but it rarely does this now.
I've also backed the agents environment or sandbox with Dagger, which brings a number of capabilities like being able to drop into a shell in the same environment, make changes, and have those propagate back to the session. Time travel, clone/fork, and a VS Code virtual FS are some others. I can go into a shell at any point in the session history.
I can also interact with the same session, at the same time, from VS Code, the TUI, or the API. Different modalities are ideal for different tasks (e.g. VS Code multi-diff for code review / edits; TUI for session management / cleanup)
Six months from now half of these abstractions will have been renamed or removed once real users push back on the cognitive overhead. Google has a pattern of releasing infrastructure that's perfectly shaped for Googles problems and awkward for everyone else's
Like Kubernetes?
I think most of the legacy companies that can benefit from Kubernetes don't use it, while most of the companies that are using it are startups doing it for the résumé.
This is not 2015.
Yes, and unironically.
And angular.
kubernetes isnt difficult
k8s is simple because it offload some key tasks to 3rd party like network and storage; it is not easy to: a) setup and maintain a k8s cluster with all necessary components from at least a dozen different sources b) design your application to be k8s native
really?
The same way linux isn't. It's easy to start, all the base modifications/configurations are fairly simple, and if you find yourself deep into custom ways of using it, it's open source and fairly well documented with a large community.
100%. Great assessment.
I'm looking forward to trying this. I've had a positive but high-variance experience with Gastown[1], which is in the same genre. I hope that Scion does better.
My main complaints with Gastown are that (1) it's expensive, partly because (2) it refuses to use anything but Claude models, in spite of my configuration attempts, (3) I can't figure out how to back up or add a remote to its beads/dolt bug database, which makes me afraid to touch the installation, and (4) upgrading it often causes yak shaving and lost context. These might all be my own skill issues, but I do RTFM.
But wow, Gastown gets results. There's something magic about the dialogue and coordination between the mayor and the polecats that leads to an even better experience than Claude Code alone.
1. https://github.com/gastownhall/gastown/
this is very cool! i recently hacked on something similar https://github.com/s2-streamstore/parallax
and also wrote about it https://s2.dev/blog/distributed-ai-agents
They kinda buried the code deep in their docs:
https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/scion
This seems to be in the direction of Gas Town but missing some of the core features. Having formulas has been game changing.
> This project is early and experimental. Core concepts are settled, but expect rough edges. Local mode: relatively stable - Hub-based workflows: ~80% verified - Kubernetes runtime: early with known rough edges
i guess gastown is a better choice for now? idk i don't feel good about "relatively stable"
Reading this headline, I rather thought of a different SCION:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCION_(Internet_architecture)
I swore to not be burned by google ever again after TensorFlow. This looks cool, and I will give this to my Codex to chew on and explain if it fits (or could fit what I am building right now -- the msx.dev) and then move on. I don't trust Google with maintaining the tools I rely on.
nice plug
I want to experiment more with agents but my employer only pays for Claude Code, and TOS disallows using the subscription API for other purposes. Anyone else in the same boat? Token based pricing also gets expensive fast.
Their agent tooling is shaping up to be the well known issue of product cancellation. They have how many different takes on this now? (gemini-cli, antigravity, AI studio, this, Gemini app)
I've not been impressed with any of them. I do use their ADK in my custom agent stack for the core runtime. That one I think is good and has legs for longevity.
The main enterprise problem here is getting the various agent frameworks to play nice. How should one have shared runtimes, session clones, sandboxes, memory, etc between the tooling and/or employees?
It's all just system prompts under the hood and nothing more.
Not if you go custom, you have unlimited latitude, examples...
I modified file_read/write/edit to put the contents in the system prompt. This saves context space, i.e. when it rereads a file after failed edit, even though it has the most recent contents. It also does not need to infer modified content from read+edits. It still sees the edits as messages, but the current actual contents are always there.
My AGENTS.md loader. The agent does not decide, it's deterministic based on what other files/dirs it has interacted with. It can still ask to read them, but it rarely does this now.
I've also backed the agents environment or sandbox with Dagger, which brings a number of capabilities like being able to drop into a shell in the same environment, make changes, and have those propagate back to the session. Time travel, clone/fork, and a VS Code virtual FS are some others. I can go into a shell at any point in the session history.
I can also interact with the same session, at the same time, from VS Code, the TUI, or the API. Different modalities are ideal for different tasks (e.g. VS Code multi-diff for code review / edits; TUI for session management / cleanup)
Don't forget a while loop and a TODO.md