Things Magnus Hagander Has Said on Podcasts

“Our build farm, for example, has done just fine until AI agents showed up, and suddenly you need to optimize it in a whole different way, because they're not following the rules. The good old robots.txt that you'd put on a site to tell search engines what they're allowed to do: none of the AI systems care about that. So now you need to put more defenses in place.” — Magnus Hagander, Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano

Talking about the Postgres project's self-hosted infrastructure and what keeps its volunteer sysadmins busy, he said most recent work has gone into defending services from AI crawlers that overload them and ignore the rules sites publish.

Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →

Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano Around 50:05 into the episode

Magnus Hagander

…uh uh kitania doing that so there's different people in different uh places i don't actually know who does the us ones these days but the point being like you should you should do what you're good at and uh graphical design or something that is not what i'm good at so i'm very glad to leave that to

Claire Giordano

…feel free to contact me um so it's a good talk and i will link to it thank you all right so uh we should probably switch gears from infrastructure except i don't know have there been any particularly exciting stories in the infrastructure space in the last couple of months that you want to share

Magnus Hagander

no not really a lot of the the things that are happening there are now are battling ai agents that are basically uh overloading pretty much everything on the entire internet and flooding everything everywhere so a lot of our our sort of some are site systems that are really just for postgres like our build farm for example has done just fine until ai agents showed up and suddenly you need to optimize it in a whole different way because they're not following the rules you put these the the good old robots.txt that you'd put on a site to tell search engines what they're allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do none of the ai systems care about that so now you need to to put more defenses in place for a bunch of these things and unfortunately that's what a lot of the work has been around uh recently

Claire Giordano

yeah i feel like that that's an evolving space though because obviously the ai agents can also help people right access information that was difficult to access previously and so um i just feel like we're in this like in-between state uh where you know they were it was like the wild west and it's…

Magnus Hagander

no no i think you're right in in general it's some some of this is just yeah nobody looked at the data before or very few people looked at the data before and more people are looking at the data now and in that regard it's probably a positive right once you manage to actually deliver it but as you…

Claire Giordano

okay so let's switch gears um from infrastructure then since i was fishing for like some dramatic story and doesn't sound like there is one at the top of your head right now um besides like you said the onslaught of ai agents um postgres the nonprofit which you've been involved with since 2008 so…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

“Don't just have an AI agent write your patch and send it in. When people who are reviewing the patches look at it, they see that's the case, and they're going to lose interest. … You don't want to put yourself in a position where the senior developers, as soon as they see a patch come in from you, think: oh, I don't want to review something that Claude wrote.” — Magnus Hagander, Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano

Asked how newcomers can start contributing to Postgres, he pointed to mentorship workshops, then added advice for the AI era. An agent can be a tool, but the contributor must stay the one who develops the patch and talks to reviewers.

Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →

Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano Around 1:05:26 into the episode

Magnus Hagander

…interacting with those senior developers at events? And I say I'm sad only, only in the way that I wish that wasn't a requirement. It's not a requirement, but I think it helps because then you can explain in person and get somebody on the inside to be interested in the topic that you're working on.

Claire Giordano

…to think about pushing something out there on the mailing list, subject to a lot of scrutiny and a lot of potential criticism from the get-go. And they like that kind of one-on-one opportunity to get feedback before they push it out there to a broader audience. So I thought that was pretty cool.

Magnus Hagander

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And same as these workshops, like it's a chance to get started in a smaller group, get a little bit more focused attention in between them. So yeah, I think these are great initiatives. I think another thing that is also worth mentioning in the environments of today is don't just have an AI agent write your patch and send it in. Like no, when people who are reviewing the patches look at it, they see that's the case or in the first dialogue, they realize that's the case and they're going to lose interest. You can certainly use an AI agent as a tool as you're developing your patch, but you're the one who's developing the patch. You are the one who interacts with the reviewers who are going to take a look at your patch and things like that. And I think you don't want to put yourself in a position where. The senior developers, as soon as they see a patch come in from you, like, oh, yeah, I don't want to review something that Claude wrote. It's a tool, but you've got to do your part as well. And don't sort of lock yourself out of this very creative and very efficient review feedback loop by more or less scaring…

Claire Giordano

Yeah. Which is especially true because you need those people in order to get anything committed. So you have to be earning their trust. I mean, it's amazing what the AI agents can do these days. If we could go back in time to a year ago and then fast forward to now, we'd be shocked, right? They are…

Magnus Hagander

It's very difficult. And I think that's exactly the point. It's a great tool. It is amazing what it can do. But as with all tools, you've got to use it right. And you can't just abdicate from responsibility that you are the one who's doing this. It's a tool for you. It's not an entity of its own.

Claire Giordano

So back to office hours for a second. Do you hold them? Or have you thought about it? Or are you still thinking about it? Or it's not for you?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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