Building the Backbone of AI Agents: Telemetry, Open Source, and the Future of Developer Infrastructure with Brian Douglas
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The future of AI agents isn't just about smarter models—it's about building the infrastructure to understand, control, and scale them. In this episode, Brian Douglas, CEO of Paper Compute, argues that telemetry and open source are the unsung backbone of agent-driven development. He introduces two open-source projects: HEPL (telemetry for agents) and Stereos (a NixOS-based VM runtime), both designed to give developers visibility into agent behavior—what prompts were sent, how many tokens were used, and even what the agent was thinking during execution. But beyond the technical specs, Douglas reveals a deeper tension: as AI agents become omnipresent in our workflows, they’re recording our every move, from shell commands to private emails. He shares personal stories of being judged by his own AI assistant, which once accessed his calendar and scheduled meetings without consent—highlighting the urgent need for data isolation and policy controls. The episode confronts a paradox: while open source enables trust and transparency, it also invites copycats. Yet Douglas believes that in a world where AI is watching, the only sustainable path is to build infrastructure that’s not only functional but auditable, secure, and human-centered. The future of developer tools isn’t just automation—it’s accountability.
Build agent telemetry with local-first, open-source tools like HEPL to track prompts, tokens, and agent thinking without exposing sensitive data.
Use a NixOS-based VM runtime like Stereos to isolate agents, control access, and prevent unintended data leaks across systems.
AI agents can access your calendar, email, and shell history—set strict policies in settings.json to prevent unauthorized access.
Prompt caching can reduce token usage by up to 93%, but fast inference modes often deliver marginal gains at high cost.
Train custom models on your own agent sessions to refine tone, style, and output—use tools like Unsloth or partner with providers like Claude.
…and 3 more takeaways available in PodZeus
Introducing Paper Compute: AI Agents Need Infrastructure
Corey Quinn welcomes Brian Douglas, CEO of Paper Compute, to discuss the company's mission to build foundational infrastructure for AI agents, starting with open-source telemetry and runtime systems.
Telemetry for Agents: What’s Being Recorded and Why It Matters
“If I want to make one of the smartest people I know look like one of the dumbest people on the planet, all you have to do is just do a readback of things they have typed into search engines.”
Local First: Privacy, Control, and the Danger of Being Watched
“I can use it more effectively in ways that aren't potentially disastrous when a robot gets confused.”
Stereos: A VM Runtime for Safe, Isolated Agent Execution
Douglas introduces Stereos, a NixOS-based VM runtime that isolates agents, prevents data leakage, and enables secure, reproducible agent sessions using Merkle DAGs.
The Token Economy: Cost, Caching, and the Illusion of Unlimited AI
“I don’t necessarily need to hyper optimize around four dollars and 68 cents worth of tokens every day... but I don't know how to turn that off.”
“what we're doing and who we want to talk to, like open source is actually a value add for them to be able to see what's happening and like what controls and like what policies they could set before they even get to the conversation.”
“It can now schedule things for me, which is great. But it'll casually look at my calendar and then say, oh, he can't then he's meeting with insert company here. It's how about no?”
“I can use it more effectively in ways that aren't potentially disastrous when a robot gets confused.”
Host
Guest
Brian Douglas
person
Paper Compute
organization
Claude
other
HEPL
product
Stereos
product
NixOS
product
GitHub
organization
Duck Bill
organization
Atuin
product
organization
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