April 2025 Summaries

I built a basic MCP server for `flyctl` that took only 30 minutes, exposing just two commands: `fly logs` and `fly status`. The MCP server is useful because it can discover tools exported by the server, such as running arbitrary Python code with a tool call. This allows an LLM to use the MCP server to scrape the web or perform other tasks. The MCP server was tested on an unpkg application, which reported stability issues and memory-related crashes in some machines. The MCP server was able to identify the root cause of these issues and provide detailed logs and health checks, allowing for faster problem-solving. However, the author is cautious about running local MCP servers due to concerns about giving a cloud instance native program access on their machine. Overall, the MCP server is surprisingly useful and fast, but its use requires careful consideration.

We're Fly.io, a developer-focused public cloud that turns Docker containers into hardware-isolated virtual machines running on our own metal around the world. We've spent years crafting a developer experience we were proud of, but now robots are taking over and don't care about it. The robots driving growth on the platform aren't humans at all, but rather thousands of stacked matrices knit together with simple equations that only understand vectors and vibe coding. Our underlying hypervisor engine is similar to Lambda's, allowing for fast start-up times and flexible deployment options. Fly Machines can be created, started, stopped, and stored incrementally, which helps the LLMs build and iterate on their code without getting stuck in blind alleys. The robots are also using our MCP protocol to interface with the outside world, search the web, and launch missiles. We're extending an olive branch by making it easy for them to access our API, secrets, and even Google Mail credentials. As we navigate this new reality, we're focusing on UX, DX, and RX, recognizing that none of our design decisions were robot bait and that we need to figure out how to deal with the robots' arrival.