Infrastructure as code: why you can never avoid thinking

Infrastructure as code: why you can never avoid thinking

From Adventures in DevOps by Will Button, Warren Parad

April 17, 2026 · 53 min · Episode 269

About this episode

The episode explores the evolution and future of Infrastructure as Code with insights from Eric Osterman of Cloud Posse.

Share Episode                     We explore the past and AI-driven future of Infrastructure as Code with Cloud Posse 's Erik Osterman, discussing various IaC traumas. Erik maintains the world's largest repository of open-source IaC modules. Looking back at the dark ages of infrastructure, from the early days of raw CloudFormation and Capistrano to the rise and fall of tools like Puppet and Chef, we discuss the organic, messy growth of cloud environments. Where organizations frequently scale a single AWS account into a tangled web rather than adopting a robust multi-account architecture guided by a proper framework.           The conversation then shifts to the modern era of rapid integration of infrastructure development. While generating IaC with large language models can be incredibly fast, it introduces severe risks if left unchecked, and we explore how organizations can protect themselves by relying on Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) and predefined "skills". The hopeful goal of ensuring autonomous deployments are compliant…

People in this episode

Hosts: Will Button, Warren Parad

Guest: Eric Osterman

Topics covered

  • Infrastructure as Code
  • AI in DevOps
  • Cloud architecture
  • Code review
  • Autonomous deployments

Keywords

  • Infrastructure as Code
  • IaC
  • cloud environments
  • Architectural Decision Records
  • code review
  • AI-driven development
  • AWS architecture

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cloud Posse

Products: CloudFormation, Capistrano, Puppet, Chef, Atmos framework, Checkov

Books & works: Project Hail Mary, Everybody's free to wear sunscreen, The 10X Rule

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