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The Agentic Infrastructure Gap: In-Distribution Languages Make It a Coding Problem#

@Scale: Systems & Reliability 2026 digest Program Core pick 25 June 2026

Abstract Recording

Joe Duffy (Pulumi)

Play the recording: The Agentic Infrastructure Gap: In-Distribution Languages Make It a Coding Problem

  • Why: A sharp thesis on how agents should manage infrastructure: LLMs are trained on billions of lines of Python/TypeScript/Go and almost nothing on your bespoke DSLs, consoles, and runbooks. If agents are going to run infra, the infra's interface needs to live in the distribution the model was trained on. Directly relevant to how network automation and IaC platforms should be shaped for agent consumption.
  • What: The argument that "assembling IKEA furniture" — consoles, API keys, copy-pasted config — is the agent blocker, and that modeling infrastructure in real programming languages reduces agent management to a coding problem, given an oracle that maps code changes back to infrastructure outcomes. Includes learnings from Pulumi's work with frontier AI companies. (from abstract only)
  • How: Infrastructure expressed as code in mainstream languages (Pulumi's model), plus a preview/plan-style oracle that predicts infrastructure outcomes from code diffs, closing the agent's feedback loop.
  • Where applicable: General-purpose for IaC and cloud provisioning; expect vendor framing (Pulumi CEO) but the in-distribution-language argument applies to any automation surface, including network config generation.