DEV Community: Upsun

How exposed is your stack to cloud lock-In? ☁️

Flora Brandão — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 14:14:22 +0000

Maintaining separate CI/CD pipelines for every cloud provider and manually gathering audit evidence across consoles is a painful engineering grind.

The problem:
Cloud dependency concentrates in four places and slows down every change: - Applications tightly bound to provider-specific services

High friction and long timelines for planned migrations
Inconsistent delivery workflows across different teams
Non-portable governance and audit controlsThe Fix:

Consolidate at the delivery layer to fix the root cause:

Store one portable application definition in Git
Declare policy as code at the platform layer
Use a single delivery workflow for every target cloud

Why it matters:
You lower switching barriers and make provider choice a downstream decision without rewriting your whole architecture.

Read the full article to score your own cloud exposure:

Multicloud exposure assessment for IT leaders | Upsun

Assess how exposed you are to cloud lock-in in about 15 minutes. Score four areas of multicloud dependency and see which risks to address first

upsun.com

Demystifying SSH authentication: how certificates and proxies Work 🔑

Flora Brandão — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:37:19 +0000

Managing secure access and permissions across environments can quickly become a tedious engineering headache. Understanding the exact flow of your SSH connection is essential for keeping systems secure without losing visibility.

Here is how SSH authentication functions under the hood:

The problem: SSH connections can feel like a black box when dealing with certificate provisioning, trust, and multi-factor authentication.
The fix: Standardize access using an SSH proxy, CA trust validation, certificate decoding, and structured permission extensions.
Why it matters: You get clear insight into your access checks, permissions, and final connection hops to keep your infrastructure secure.

Check out the full technical write-up to see how the entire SSH authentication flow works step by step:

How SSH authentication works on Upsun - Upsun Developer

Decode the SSH certificate the Upsun CLI provisions for you, then follow it through the SSH proxy: CA trust, revocation, access documents, and MFA.

developer.upsun.com

Stop skipping stages in your AI adoption 🤖

Flora Brandão — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:05:23 +0000

Imagine opening your laptop on Monday morning to 53 changed files and over 2000 diffs dumped by unsupervised coding agents.

Here is why jumping straight to fully autonomous AI breaks team workflows:

The problem: Individual AI productivity outruns team readiness, leaving developers feeling ambushed and unable to review code properly.
The solution: Adopt AI sequentially through an eight-stage maturity model instead of skipping straight to autonomous factories.
Why it matters: Trust must be earned workflow by workflow, ensuring review habits and governance are built before automation scales.

Check out the article to learn how to navigate each stage of AI maturity:

Don't build the autonomous AI factory first | Upsun

Skipping stages in AI adoption creates security and technical debt for engineering teams. Learn the eight stages to safely build an autonomous AI factory

upsun.com

How to choose a code index for your coding agent 💻

Flora Brandão — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 09:53:28 +0000

Finding the right context index for a coding agent across Go, TypeScript, Swift, and SQL codebases is a real engineering challenge. Without proper context coverage and retrieval quality, your agent struggles to deliver accurate results.

Here is what was learned testing Graft and roam-code on a real project:

The problem: Agents need the right balance of context coverage, retrieval quality, and change analysis to be useful.
The fix: Graft delivers more direct and focused results, while roam-code adds helpful change analysis features with specific caveats.
Why it matters: Proper index coverage changes the final recommendation and ensures your agent provides actionable assistance.

Check out the full article to see the complete evaluation and test results:

How to choose a code index for your coding agent - Upsun Developer

Compare Graft and roam-code on a real Go, TypeScript, Swift, and SQL codebase to evaluate context coverage, retrieval quality, and change analysis in practice.

developer.upsun.com

Why managing multicloud at the provider layer is breaking your governance ☁️

Flora Brandão — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:04:33 +0000

Managing separate compliance controls, access policies, and billing consoles for AWS, Azure, and GCP manually is an absolute operational grind.

The problem:

Infrastructure spread across multiple public clouds through acquisitions, team choices, and disaster recovery needs
Traditional governance frameworks stop at the boundary of each provider console
Managing policies per environment leads to configuration drift, security breaches, and scaling headaches

The fix:

Move governance up to the delivery layer above individual cloud providers
Define access controls, policies, and environment configurations once in version controlled code
Enforce guardrails automatically across all environments instead of jumping between consoles

Why it matters:

Eliminates manual audit prep and fragmented cost tracking
Maintains workload portability without rebuilding security models
Reduces vendor lock in and keeps negotiating leverage in your hands

Check out the full article to learn more about setting up cross provider governance guardrails:

Multicloud governance: policy across providers | Upsun

Multicloud is the reality most IT teams already have. See why governance, not infrastructure, now decides resilience, compliance, and control

upsun.com

AI tools forgot that software is a team sport 🤝

Flora Brandão — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 14:04:36 +0000

Individual AI tools make coding faster for one person, but they do not solve the work that happens between people. More AI-generated code just adds drag to the review queue.

The problem: AI speeds up solo code creation, but pull request reviews, discussions, and architecture debates still cause bottlenecks.
The fix: Focus on structured workflows rather than standalone agents. Run agents in isolated sandboxes with explicit human approval gates for critical decisions.
Why it matters: It brings product managers, designers, and security teams directly into the process. The review load spreads out instead of piling up on senior engineers.

Check out the full article to see how teams are testing agent-run reviews and human-in-the-loop workflows:

Software is a team sport. Most AI tools forgot that.

AI made writing code fast. Upsun product manager Kateryna Dvornichenko on why team collaboration, not individual speed, is the real test for AI agents

upsun.com

Why the fastest teams standardize first 🏎️

Flora Brandão — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:56:39 +0000

Developers spend 40 to 60 percent of their time on non-coding, non-strategic toil like broken staging environments and environment drift. Ad hoc speed feels fast, but variability throttles overall throughput.

Here is how standardizing the platform layer changes the daily workflow:

Fix the core problem: Inconsistent deployment scripts and undocumented configurations create structural drag.
Apply the platform fix: Automate standard paths for deployments, environment definitions, and security gates.
Free up senior engineers: Stop turning senior devs into accidental DevOps leads so they can focus on core product decisions.

Standardization acts like better brakes on a car. It provides the control needed to move faster safely.

Check out the full article to read the complete breakdown:

Why high-velocity teams standardize first | Upsun

High-velocity teams standardize the path to production first. See why repeatable velocity beats ad hoc speed, and how it returns time to developers.

upsun.com

Why workflows are the primitive your engineering team is missing ⚙️

Flora Brandão — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:26:43 +0000

AI agents made writing code fast, but shipping product is still slow. The bottleneck has shifted from writing APIs to managing the manual rituals around code.

Here is what is happening:

Engineers use multiple AI tools, but review queues still grow fast.
Opening merge requests, triaging conflicts, and chasing reviews creates chaos.
AI accelerates your good practices, but it also accelerates your messy processes.

The fix is treating the entire workflow as the core unit, not individual agents.

Move shared context to the cloud so humans and agents use one source of truth.
Standardize terms across product, engineering, and design.
Use structured steps, sandboxes, human approvals, and full audit logs.

Focusing on workflows removes friction, cuts down on unnecessary meetings, and lets your team ship safely.

Read the full article to see how to shift your engineering stack from agent chaos to governed workflows:

Why AI workflows beat agents for engineering teams

AI agents write code fast, but reviews, handoffs, and other ceremonies still slow teams down. See why workflows, not agents, are the real unit of coordination.

upsun.com

[Event] Meet us at dotAI 🚀

Flora Brandão — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:33:55 +0000

Come meet us at dotAI 2026 at the Folies Bergère on September 17!

Stop by our booth to participate in a fun experience where you can "Code it, build it, ship it." with your agent in a live digital experience by Upsun Dispatch™ and collect your limited edition Upsun Dispatch patch. 👀

Meet the AI Engineering team, and learn how Upsun helps engineering teams build, deploy, and scale applications in the age of AI. Discover what it looks like when AI agents and human teams ship together, governed, traceable, and at scale.

📅 September 17, 2026
📍 Paris, France
👉 Try it for free: https://upsun.com/dispatch/

dotAI | Artificial Intelligence conference in Europe

Join dotAI, the world's brightest AI conference for AI builders and developers, September 17, 2026 in Paris. Get the latest news, features and best practices about Artificial Intelligence.

dotai.io

Why AI agent security starts where it runs, not how it behaves 🔐

Flora Brandão — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:38:16 +0000

Most teams run AI agents directly on local developer laptops without realization of the security risks. Combining untrusted data access, side effects, and local credentials creates a dangerous setup with zero central visibility or audit logs.

The fix:

Shift from probabilistic guardrails to system level guarantees.
Run agents inside isolated, ephemeral cloud sandboxes that reset after each run.
Enforce least privilege access using scoped credentials and read-only tokens.
Add explicit human approval steps for actions with persistent effects.

By containing the blast radius at the infrastructure level, you protect sensitive credentials even if a model hallucinates or faces a prompt injection attack.

Check out the full article to dive deeper into building safe agent infrastructure:

Agent security starts with where the agent runs, not how it behaves

Most engineering teams evaluate agent security by asking how the model behaves. Patrick Dawkins, Principal Software Engineer at Upsun, argues that it is the wrong question. The risk starts with where the agent runs and what it can reach from there.

upsun.com

Stop managing decoupled stacks across four dashboards 🛠️

Flora Brandão — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:35:28 +0000

Managing environment variables across multiple cloud providers is a constant grind. You end up with out of date README files, preview environments calling production APIs, and CORS errors that only happen on subdomains.

The problem happens when components designed as one system are deployed as separate concerns. Moving to a single configuration file changes everything:

Deterministic networking: services reach each other via fixed internal hostnames without hand-maintained environment variables.
Environment isolation: preview environments get isolated instances of every app and database automatically wired together.
Simplified operations: one deployment pipeline, centralized logs, and a single dashboard reduce operational overhead.

Defining your full stack in one config keeps your architecture and operational model aligned.

Check out the full article to see how to simplify your multi-app setup:

Decoupled web stacks without four dashboards | Upsun

Stop juggling separate dashboards for your frontend, backend and workers. Upsun runs decoupled stacks as one project with built-in networking

upsun.com

How to stop cloud migrations from blowing the budget 🚀

Flora Brandão — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:05:19 +0000

Most cloud migrations fail in a predictable sequence. You scope the technical work, set a timeline, and start moving workloads. Then hidden dependencies surface mid-project, double-run costs explode, and the timeline stalls.

According to the Flexera 2026 State of the Cloud Report, understanding application dependencies is cited as the single biggest migration challenge (54%).

Here is how to fix the migration grind before moving a single workload:

Assess before you commit: Map application dependencies, categorize workloads using the 6 Rs framework, and assign a clear owner to every workload.
Sequence by risk, not speed: Start by retiring unnecessary workloads. Move isolated rehost workloads next to build confidence. Sequence refactor workloads by what depends on them.
Define cutover criteria early: Set measurable performance thresholds, data integrity checks, and rollback conditions before starting parallel operation to avoid unnecessary double-run spend.
Address internal resistance: Involve engineering teams early in categorization, provide clear answers on technology autonomy, and secure visible executive ownership.

Check out the full post for a deep dive into the 4-phase migration playbook and practical cutover strategies:

Cloud migration playbook: escape lock-in | Upsun

A phased cloud migration playbook to escape vendor lock-in without disrupting delivery. Assess before you move, sequence by risk, and cut over with confidence

upsun.com