6 October 2026 →
Speaker. Builder.
Agentic AI, in production, without getting burned
Thirty years across operations, cloud and platform engineering, from CTO to individual contributor, and now AI Business Stream Lead for Leaders and Organizations at Accenture LearnVantage. I work with executives on the part of agentic AI that decides whether it survives contact with production: governance that infrastructure enforces, not the model. That is the premise of Agentic Covenants, and it is what the MCP Dev Summit Toronto keynote covers, deploying the Model Context Protocol across a workforce of about 750,000 people. Earlier stops: Red Hat, ThoughtWorks, Amazon Web Services, and The Performant Professionals, the advisory practice I founded. The writing here is the working notes.

Latest recording
Ignite Talk - The Day Claude Code Deleted My Cluster - A Cautionary Tale About AI Guardrails
15 May 2026
Agentic Covenants
Upcoming
9 November 2026 →
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026
10 November 2026 →
Cloud Native University @ KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026
20 November 2026 →
Writing
All 126- Deep Dive: I Let Claude Build the Entire IDP. Here's What That Actually Looks Like.
- Appearances Index
- Opinion: If You're an FDE Without a Platform, Why Not Build One?
- Opinion: What Is an FDE Without a Platform?
- Conversations I've had this week - We've Got the AI Investment Story Backwards
- The Four-Hour Executive AI Workshop Problem
Watch
All recordings
Ignite Talk - The Day Claude Code Deleted My Cluster - A Cautionary Tale About AI GuardrailsSpeaking · 2026
Cloud Native Theater | Cloud Native University: AI + Kubernetes: What Beginners Need to Know in 2026Speaking · 2026
Cloud Native Theater | Cloud Native University: How Kubernetes Actually Ships - An Educator's Guide to Core Releases, SIGs, and Staying CurrentSpeaking · 2026
Come Visit Michael Forrester at KCD Texas 2026Speaking · 2026
Listen
The AI Inevitable, with Whitney Lee. Evidence-based answers to the questions everyone is asking about AI. One falsifiable question per episode, reviewed against the papers.
Play
- KubeQuestLearn Kubernetes as a game. Quests, not chapters.
- CNCF BingoA bingo card of CNCF projects, each described by what it actually does.
- Git Branch CoursesBranching, merging and rebasing as puzzles you solve in the browser.
- D&D Virtual TabletopA 5e virtual tabletop that runs on the rules engine, built for the home table.
- AntiphonA Lancer campaign in the world of Sarn, with its chronicle drawn as a graphic novel.