Platform Engineering · The Signal
The State of Platform Engineering in the Age of AI Agents
What actually changed when agent runtimes, GPU pools, and tool access landed on the same product.
Elias Voss · 5 min · Aug 20, 2026
Articles
List-first index. Filter by topic, persona, type, and difficulty.
Field Engineering · Decision Guide
FDE vs Platform Engineer vs Solutions Architect
A hiring decision guide. Public role descriptions disagree by company; they are not a universal org chart.
Nia Brooks · 9 min · Aug 18, 2026
Observability · Operator Guide
Observability for AI Agents
Spans, identity, and cost for multi-step agent workflows, using OpenTelemetry rather than a vendor product tour.
Marcus Reed · 12 min · Aug 18, 2026
Field Engineering · Field Note
What Is a Forward Deployed Engineer?
What Palantir, OpenAI, and Anthropic actually post, and the engineering work between discovery and production handoff.
Nia Brooks · 8 min · Aug 18, 2026
Platform Engineering · Explainer
What Is Agentic Platform Engineering?
What agents may do inside golden paths and self-service, and which platform jobs stay human.
Dr. Maya Chen · 8 min · Aug 18, 2026
AI Agents · The Signal
Why Everyone Suddenly Wants an MCP Gateway
What a proxy can centralize, what it cannot, and which controls may already live in the harness or the mesh.
Elias Voss · 6 min · Aug 18, 2026
AI Agents · Decision Guide
Agent Harness vs Agent Framework vs MCP
Decide which problem you are buying before you buy a product.
Dr. Maya Chen · 3 min · Aug 17, 2026
AI Agents · Operator Guide
How to Run MCP Servers as Privileged Workloads
Operator controls that travel with the server, whether it runs on a VM, a container, Kubernetes, or a managed host.
Marcus Reed · 6 min · Aug 17, 2026
AI Agents · Explainer
MCP for Platform Engineers
Translate the protocol into workloads you host, credentials you issue, and failures you own.
Dr. Maya Chen · 4 min · Aug 17, 2026
AI Agents · Explainer
The Anatomy of a Production AI Agent
Six layers a platform team can argue about before the first privileged tool call.
Dr. Maya Chen · 3 min · Aug 17, 2026
AI Agents · Deep Dive
What Actually Belongs Inside an Agent Harness?
Draw the boundary before the product category draws it for you.
Dr. Maya Chen · 4 min · Aug 17, 2026
AI Agents · Explainer
What Is an AI Agent Harness?
Name the operable layer around the model before you grant it tools.
Dr. Maya Chen · 4 min · Aug 17, 2026