Thread

Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work

641 points · 315 comments · speckx

rozenmd · 1785939425 · focus · HN ↗
I liked Kenton's take on this: <a href="https://x.com/KentonVarda/status/2084990137180590572?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/KentonVarda/status/2084990137180590572?s=20
Text from tweet:
Today we are releasing Cloudflare OS, a chatbot with connectors, just like every other tech company is doing.
Except actually, it's different. This is a remake of Sandstorm[.]io, my startup from 10 years ago, except this time built on Cloudflare Workers (the platform I've spent the last 9 years building) and deeply leveraging AI. This is more or less the culmination of my secret 10-year master plan.
This is a full-on personal app vibe coding platform, in which the sandbox is so secure that you can pretty much go wild -- the AI cannot introduce a significant security bug. We believe a company's security team can feel comfortable giving non-technical users permission to vibe code and then sleep soundly at night.
How is that possible? It's the Sandstorm security model, revisited. A "Gadget" is the same thing as a Sandstorm "Grain": a fine-grained app instance. For example, if you have a document editor app, each document runs as a separate instance of the app, in a separate sandbox (one "Gadget").
This means two things, both of which I think are Big Deals: 1. The platform can manage all access control, by controlling who can access the Gadget at all. There is no way the Gadget can accidentally leak itself to an attacker -- even an attacker who has access to other Gadgets based on the same app. 2. Since everyone is running their own copy of the code, everyone can freely modify their copy of the code.
Think about #2 a bit more.
What if, when you wanted a new feature in the software you are using, you could just prompt your agent to add it?
This doesn't work in the cloud Software-as-a-Service model, because you are not running your own copy of the app.
Sandstorm tried to change that 10 years ago, but the world wasn't ready, because not enough people had the skills or patience to actually modify their software. AI has changed that. Now you just ask the agent -- the same agent that you are using to help you interact with the Gadget can also modify the code of the Gadget.
And it is so fun.
1. fny · 1785940510 · focus · HN ↗
  That should have been the announcement.
  The article posted buries the lead. Cloudflare OS reads like almost any other AI knowledge base until midway when apps are introduced and then becomes overly technical with a code snippet.
  1. dofm · 1785941835 · focus · HN ↗
    Random trivia (and something I learned this way myself from an internet reply, though I can't remember when):
    What gets buried is the "lede". It is a really unusual thing — a deliberate, engineered misspelling of "lead" that leaked into broader use:
    <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bury-the-lede-versus-lead" rel="nofollow">https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bury-the-lede-versu...
    (Not meant as a nit-pick — it's just something that adds really fascinating historical colour to a useful expression, that people often mistakenly re-correct)
    [deleted] · 1785945602 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    reaperducer · 1785950820 · focus · HN ↗
    It's spelled "lede" so as not to be confused with "lead," as in the metal with which was used to print newspapers.
    Since "lead" (as in beginning of a story) and "lead" (as in metal) were frequently used in print newsrooms, the spelling of one changed over time to reduce confusion.
    There were a number of other language convolutions in newsrooms, such as "slug" which meant a piece of hot metal, and so was useful for describing a spent bullet, the very short text that served as a title for a particular story, and a section of metal letters on the printing press.
    /Worked for two major newspaper companies back when printing newspapers was akin to printing money.
    dofm · 1785952281 · focus · HN ↗
    “TK” meaning “to come” is another one. “More TK” in particular is now a blogger affectation but it seems to have been a way to communicate to an editor that a story was so far incomplete, within the text of a submission, without the editor assuming the words “to come” were part of the story. And elsewhere it indicates a placeholder that needs a fact to be confirmed and filled in before publication.
    reaperducer · 1785961747 · focus · HN ↗
    it seems to have been a way to communicate to an editor that a story was so far incomplete
    When the story was complete, the notification varied from newspaper to newspaper, but very often they followed the AP's convention of writing "-30-" which I have always believed was something the AP print wire actually (and surprisingly) adopted from the broadcast side, because broadcast stories were ideally 30 seconds long.
    glenstein · 1785954672 · focus · HN ↗
    Not sure why you got downvoted on this one. You're right and you even turned it into a bit of language history. It's bury the lede, and now I know why.
    dofm · 1785956997 · focus · HN ↗
    I think it was fair. I added the bit in brackets to clarify because maybe it had come across as a nit-pick.
    In my head there are corrections that are rude that I don't do, because I genuinely think authentic writing matters more and more, and because I am absolutely not above reproach where grammar and spelling is concerned.
    Then there are things I think people would want to know, that are either in the intellectual-you-have-a-little-bit-of-pinach-in-your-teeth territory or in the "cool fact" territory, or somewhere hazy in between.
    I figured if one is going to correctly use an expressive phrase like "bury the lede" that they've perhaps only ever heard someone say, they would absolutely want to know about the spelling quirk, because it fully makes it better.
    Other people obviously read it differently and the downvote was a useful signal.

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