I presented an RSA Webcast last week, and got emailed a certificate of completion afterwards, like all the other attendees. Great, now I can prove I was there

Starting Sept 29, you won't have to manually enable specific models in new accounts for AWS Bedrock. This could be seen as very positive (no more approval step) or very negative (developers can now use any model, even the ones that your company maybe doesn't want them to (see: DeepSeek).

Develop and implement a secure generative Al Slack bot with guidance from Veradigm Sr Principal Software Engineer Kyler Middleton in this #RSAC Webcast. Wednesday the September 19 @ 1:00 PM ET Register:

I couldn't find a good example of AppConfig terraform to build a multi-variant Config - one which changes based on the Context provided by the clients... so I experimented for a few hours, got it working, and submitted one. It just became live. Hope it helps :) <3

AWS Strands can't yet read GitHub file contents using the GitHub MCP, and it's all on Strands - it doesn't yet support Resources, how GitHub returns file contents. I have a write-up of what's wrong and why the Strands Maintainers don't want to merge my fix for this behavior.

The AWS Provider docs don't have a good example of multi-variant AppConfig feature flags configs, and they're provided as this flag json structure like IAM rules (but less supported, worse error messages and tools). I got it working after a few hours of testing. So I'm fixing it! buff.ly/wxKvDob

The only real Strands production use I have so far I'm calling VeraResearch, and it's an agentic bot that's reachable via Slack, and it currently only has a GitHub MCP. For instance, different teams have different gitflow. What should I do next to promote code? Well, VeraResearch can tell you!

Article 2 in my series on how to build a Teams GenAI Bot is now free forever! It covers how to use the Teams Developer Portal to register the Teams names you want your App to use. Check it out here:

Develop and implement a secure generative Al Slack bot with guidance from Veradigm Sr Principal Software Engineer Kyler Middleton in this #RSAC Webcast. September 19| 1:00 PM ET Register:

Hey all! The Strands library to write agentic bots is super easy, but it can be a little unintuitive how to consume different types of MCPs and which built-in tools are available, so I wrote some super simple examples for folks to build on. You can find them at the link!

What's RSA emailing me about now? Oh hey, that's me! I'll be presenting on how to build a secure AI assistant in a regulated industry (healthcare) in the US on Friday Sep 19! Register now to get reminded! www.rsaconference .com/library/webcast/194-secure-ai-assistant

🔥 New article just dropped on Let’s Do DevOps: AWS Strands and MCP with Simple, Real-World Examples 🔥 Strands is an open-source framework from AWS that makes it way easier to build agentic bots - think multi-step automation that can read, analyze, and act across different platforms. buff.ly/INpQIsf

I've been building Strands agentic agents that can natively use MCPs for the past two weeks or so. I was surprised that Strands can't view the contents of files on GitHub using the MCP... so I added that. ⭐ Please give this PR a thumbs up!

Newest release of OSX (mac) of 15.6.1 removed alias of "python" to "python3" (weird). > python zsh: command not found: python You can re-add it as an alias in .zshrc (if you use zsh (the default). echo "alias python=python3" >> ~/.zshrc And then it works again: > python --version Python 3.13.7

Keep your fingers crossed!! #RSA2026

If your company doesn't permit using Preview features at GitHub (like fresh-off-the-presses AI models) due to them lacking legal indemnification, well, that just changed! Tell your legal teams / platform teams about this. It might let you jump on new models even faster! buff.ly/JEWvOQc

Did you know k8s's CoreDNS permits forwarding specific domain DNS resolution to a specific destination? Edit the CoreDNS config: kubectl -n kube-system edit configmap coredns Add a forwarder: forward domain.com 10.0.0.2 Restart coredns: kubectl -n kube-system rollout restart deployment coredns

I'm gonna start a company called Ex-FAANG and it's gonna look like I've employed thousands of incredible people on LinkedIn

Oooh, the AWS Community Builders program gets a special CFP again this year for #ReInvent! I submitted, everybody cross your fingers for me!!! 🤞 🍀

The last article in my Vera@teams series is now out, URL is in the picture! It covers how to write python that can interface with Teams, and by necessity, SharePoint and OneDrive, to use the user's oauth2 token to fetch their files so you can consume them with Bedrock AI.

I'LL BE SPEAKING AT LWT IN NY IN OCTOBER!! I'm teaching a workshop on how to build your own compliant gen AI assistant in healthcare. I can't wait :D Message me if you'll be able to make it!

I just wrote the last article in my Vera@Teams series (image related). I'm sad to see it go, but I'm very excited for my next foray into MCP enabled bots, particularly my current project - an SRE bot that can read PagerDuty, Splunk, Jira! Super cool stuff coming, I'll publish what I can!!

I've discovered strands (strandsagents\.com), an open-source project from AWS that lets folks build MCP-compatible agents with nearly no code, and I'm THRILLED. Is anyone else using Strands yet? It rules. Write-up coming!!

Registering an app to your Teams Enterprise is a surprisingly complex endeavor. But I got chu. Read along for all steps, including a lot of the tricky image, regionality, and authentication stuff. Now free forever, and several more articles in this series paid (free coming) if you're interested.

🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 Wish me luck!!

Hey all! Part 5 of the Let’s Do DevOps Teams bot series is live. This one covers how the bot reads Teams conversations, grabs context, pulls attachments, and builds a (hopefully) smart reply. Teams makes this painful, but we make it work.

I don't like writing code with agentic AIs today. It seems we currently require front-loading design and decisions before the AI starts. If you leave gaps, it guesses, makeing random choices that might ruin the code. Does anyone have a workflow where the AI can push back on any gaps it identifies?

The first article in the Teams GenAI Bedrock series is now FREE FOREVER! Go build your own compliance-friendly GenAI bot using AWS Bedrock. All code is open source and free! buff.ly/0aafcG6

I'm finally reading this paper but my first thought is anybody on earth good at predicting how long a task will take them....? Setting aside the small person sample, randomizing the tasks within developer is....super odd? Wouldn't we start to expect a lot of order effects?

The next article in the Vera Teams series is now out! PHEW This one covers all the magic I'm doing to make a stateless app (lambda) stateful using dynamoDB, and how Entra works It's REAL cool, check it out: buff.ly/3LAHRJK #LetsDoDevOps #Lambda #AIEngineering #EntraIdP #OAuth2

Our talk is now posted! Come learn about the platform engineering precepts that underpin modern cloud AI application development :) Thanks #FwdCloudSec ! buff.ly/ldOVlpq

I'm at Fwd:CloudSec this week, so no new article this week - look out for that next week! Instead, check out a write-up from Allen Helton on his Ready Set Cloud! newsletter :D Thanks Allen! buff.ly/LQvhQsz

🚨 Sonnet 4 for CoPilot is out of Preview, go enable it right now (it rules)🚨

Is your security program hard on the outside, and soft and squishy on the inside? Remember to bring your security inside your perimeter! Don't be an M&M.

Tofu v1.10.0 gets OCI registry support which works offline, from an enterprise cache, which is pretty cool. Also now supports deprecation messages on modules and negative indices so you can pick the last item in a list in a less convoluted manner than Terraform.

JessG got an incredible picture of me speaking at ReInforce!! Next up, FwdCloudSec in Denver, let me know if you'll be in town!!

Traceability and explainability on your GenAI guardrails helps your users understand what the automation did and why. I walk through how to enable AWS Bedrock Guardrails Tracing, and how to mine that data when you get blocked to show enriched messages to your users. Article now FREE FOREVER!!!!

ReInforce talk on Vera has posted! youtu.be/r_JwSp-mS34 Wish I had time to rest, but @SaiG and I are presenting on AI/ML architecture patterns and platform engineering principles at Fwd:CloudSec next week in Denver! Let's gooooo 🎉🥳🎈

I was just accepted as a LinkedIn Learning Instructor LETS GOOOOOO I'm going to be focusing on the nexus of DevOps and AI. Anyone have any specific skills you want to sharpen? I think starting on how to do agentic IDEs safely and cheaply is a great start! What do ya'll think? ;D

ahhhh I'm speaking at AWS Re:Inforce today (for the first time! To 200+ people! With the incredible Meg Peddada!), wish me luck!

The way Azure issues SSO oauth2 tokens inherently defeats stateless apps, like how I've implemented Vera using AWS Lambda. Sooooo, lets add some state! Lets talk why it's the right decision regardless, and how we'll build some state for our Vera Teams application. Come check it out!!

On Wednesday I'll be presenting to about 200 people with Meg Peddada about how I built Vera, our internal AI. LETS GOOOOOO

The Results slides from my ReInforce talk with Meg@AWS - look at that growth! We now have a multi-platform GenAI bot (available on Slack, Teams, Jira) that is trained on internal data from across many knowledge stores, and is working for far cheaper than you can buy. buff.ly/5YRhAS0

I wrote about a GenAI technique I've been testing, where you have a model pre-contextualize your data before the knowledge base. It helps your KB entries be relevant, even when KB input is "fuzzy", and your relevant data is exact. It helps a ton. This article is now FREE FOREVER. Please enjoy :)

I can't get Vera to stop hallucinating knowledge base entries, but I can for sure clean up her responses. Boom! Changes coming to the open soure codebase as soon as I can find time!

I completed the implementation of Vera on Teams! I'll be writing up a new series on LetsDoDevOps to cover all the steps. It's a dramatically different implementation due to Teams' APIs being so different vs Slack. The first post of the series is live already, and one more is coming tomorrow!

UMM WAIT IM NOT SURE ABOUT THIS AI STUFF ANYMORE

Part 2 of building a GenAI Teams Bot is now live! How to register and test your shiny new GenAI App in Azure Teams Developer Portal. All steps included, so you can do it too. LetsDoDevOps. Link in image.

I've released all code for Vera on Teams on GitHub, open source on an MLP-2.0 license. This is a fully functional lambda-based AI bot, which you can register in your corporate Teams tenant, and consume AWS Bedrock AI tokens. Instead of seated licenses, you're not paying pennies for tokens.

I've never felt like less imposter syndrome than when I write an apology to future developers for my code