Agentic CI/CD with Solomon Hykes of Dagger

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Jul 14, 2025

Solomon Hykes, co-founder of Dagger and Docker, shares his insights on the transformative impact of AI agents in software engineering. He discusses the launch of Container Use, designed to create isolated environments for coding agents, preventing interference during execution. Solomon argues that traditional CI/CD practices will become obsolete as agents deliver results 100x faster. He also warns of emerging gatekeeping in the Managed Container Platforms ecosystem and emphasizes the need for transparent communities to foster innovation in DevOps.

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INSIGHT

Container Use for Isolated Agents

Container Use gives coding agents isolated, containerized environments for running parallel tasks. - This stops agents from interfering with each other on the same system.

INSIGHT

Streamlining Agent Isolation

Power users create isolated agent environments using Git work trees and Docker for parallel execution. - Container Use packages this approach into a streamlined tool as an MCP server.

INSIGHT

CI/CD Must Evolve for Agents

Agents develop 100x faster than humans and require repeatable, fast CI/CD environments. - Current slow, unreliable CI/CD must evolve or agents cannot function effectively.

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Bret and Nirmal discuss the intersection of AI agents and DevOps with Solomon Hykes, co-founder of Dagger and Docker. Solomon introduces Container Use, an open-source MCP server that gives coding agents isolated, containerized environments to work in, solving the critical problem of agents interfering with each other when running on the same system.

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Also in this episode, we explore how AI agents are forcing a fundamental shift in CI/CD practices, with Solomon making the case that traditional CI/CD as we know it will disappear because agents develop 100x faster than humans and can't tolerate slow, unrepeatable build processes. Container Use enables developers to run multiple coding agents in parallel, each in their own sandboxed environment.

We examine the emerging MCP ecosystem and its potential trajectory, drawing parallels to how containers evolved from developer tools to infrastructure platforms. Solomon warns about the rapid "gatekeeping" phase already happening with MCP, where vendors rush to lock down and monetize what started as an open developer innovation space.

Other topics we touch on are: the four core components of agentic workflows, security challenges with untrusted text injection (the new "SQL injection" problem), token cost management, and the importance of balancing proprietary AI services with open-source infrastructure layers.

Check out the video podcast version here: https://youtu.be/ZSbCPIAKGlc

Creators & Guests

Bret Fisher - Host
Beth Fisher - Producer
Cristi Cotovan - Editor
Nirmal Mehta - Host
Solomon Hykes - Guest

(00:00) - Intro
(07:11) - MCP Server and Integration
(16:57) - Future of CI/CD and Agentic Workflows
(20:22) - Four Areas of Concern
(26:15) - The New Gatekeepers
(47:09) - Token Costs vs Efficiency
(48:49) - Balancing Open Source and Proprietary Systems
(49:27) - The Rise of Kubernetes and MCP
(50:21) - Security Concerns with LLMs and MCP
(55:39) - Advice for Developers in a Rapidly Changing Landscape
(59:11) - Introducing Container Use into Your Workflow
(01:02:29) - The Future of AI and DevOps
(01:09:17) - Coding Agent Blind Spots
(01:13:43) - Scaling with Dagger and Kubernetes
(01:15:47) - The Dagger Community

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