E199: Rethinking Infra-as-Code for the AI Era

<p>This Open Source Startup Podcast episode has our co-hosts <a href="https://x.com/robby_mtf" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Robby </a>and <a href="https://x.com/tnachen" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Tim </a>in conversation with <a href="https://linkedin.com/in/pavlobaron" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Pavlo Baron</a> from <a href="https://platform.engineering" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Platform Engineering Labs</a> - creators of open source infra-as-code platform <a href="https://github.com/platform-engineering-labs/formae" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">formae</a>. </p><p>This podcast explores why traditional infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform and Pulumi can struggle with state, drift, and the disconnect between code and real-world infrastructure. Pavlo shares lessons from building Instana and explains how those experiences led to Formae, an open-source approach that treats infrastructure state as accessible, executable code using Apple’s Pkl language.</p><p>The conversation also looks at what infrastructure management needs in the AI era. By reducing low-level complexity and giving both humans and AI agents safer abstractions for discovering, modifying, and reconciling infrastructure, Formae aims to make infrastructure automation more reliable and less labor-intensive. </p>