Why We'd Pick Elixir for an AI Startup Backend
A founder-readable case for Elixir as an AI startup's backend: what the BEAM gets right for agents, streaming, and durable jobs, and when to skip it.
Writing, page 7 of 12
All 138 posts, newest first. The latest are on page 1, and the topic directory groups them by subject.
Shadow AI at a Startup That Can't Buy a CASB
The enterprise shadow-AI playbook assumes a CASB budget you don't have. Here's the free, no-blame version for a 5-15 person team: three steps, zero procurement.
12 Phoenix LiveView Patterns for Production
Twelve Phoenix LiveView patterns that hold up in production: streams vs assigns, async mounts, PubSub gating, and the failure mode behind each one.
Testing AI Agent Outputs in Elixir with ExUnit
An ExUnit suite for agent loops in Elixir that asserts on tool-call order and hallucinations as well as final strings, plus evals that survive model upgrades.
The Onboarding Playbook for an Agent-Heavy Codebase
First-PR review, authorship transparency, and mentorship all change when half the diffs a new hire reads were written by an agent. Here's the process.
TDD With Claude Code in Elixir: What Holds Up
Where TDD with Claude Code actually holds up in an Elixir/Phoenix codebase (ExUnit async, mix precommit, Ecto.Multi idempotency) and where it breaks.
Security Engineer or vCISO? Your First Hire, by Stage
A security engineer builds and a vCISO decides. Which one your startup needs first, stage by stage, and the cases where the answer is neither.
What I Put in CLAUDE.md After 50 Commits With It
The CLAUDE.md entries that actually earned their place on a real project: mistake-driven rules, not a speculative template you copy once and forget.
Secrets Management for AI Agents on Small Teams
Your agent's tools need your production keys; the agent itself never should. The broker pattern, per-tool scoping, and what a five-person team can skip.
Streaming LLM Tokens in LiveView, the 2026 Way
Token-by-token LLM streaming in Phoenix LiveView without React: the 2026 async APIs, plus the production failure modes most tutorials skip.
Trust Is the Operating System
One operating system runs a team whether the teammate is a person or an agent. My blueprint: trust, pods, outcomes over hours, managing agents like interns.
The 17x Discount Hiding in Your AI Coding Bill
My team's $200 AI coding seats consume $1,800–$3,500 of API-priced tokens a month. The 10–17x arbitrage nobody prices in, and how to budget for it.