Elixir Mentor José Valim on Tidewave
Dec 6, 2025
José Valim, the creator of Elixir and founder of Dashbit and Livebook, discusses his innovative AI coding agent, Tidewave. He reveals how Tidewave helps eliminate annoying copy-paste routines and integrates seamlessly with popular frameworks like Phoenix and Django. Valim shares insights into the challenges of developing Tidewave, including security concerns and the benefits of Elixir's message-passing architecture. He explores the importance of user feedback, multi-element inspection, and evolving AI tools in enhancing developer workflows.
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MCPs Bridge Model And Runtime Knowledge
- MCPs let coding agents call external tools so agents can access compilers, logs, and docs directly.
- José Valim found MCPs promising because they bridge the model-to-runtime knowledge gap.
Copy-Paste Is The Hidden Bottleneck
- Copy-paste between browser and editor is the main friction in AI-assisted web development.
- TideWave Web removes that friction by connecting the browser UI directly to the agent and code.
Work At The Product Level
- Focus your interactions with AI at the product level, not on low-level code navigation.
- Let the agent handle locating files and components so you can review higher-level design decisions.
