Let's build something phoenix.new (Friends)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

Our old friend Chris McCord, creator of Elixir’s Phoenix framework, tells us all about his new remote AI runtime for building Phoenix apps. Along the way, we vibe code one of my silly app ideas, calculate all the money we’re going to spend on these tools, and get existential about what it all means.

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Sponsors:

• Retool – Assemble your elite AI team, arm them with powerful custom tools, and watch them make your to-do list disappear. Start for free or book a demo at retool.com/agents
• Depot – 10x faster builds? Yes please. Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.

Featuring:

• Chris McCord – Website, GitHub, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Phoenix.new
• Bolt.new

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Chapters

1. Let's talk! (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Retool (00:00:38)

https://retool.com/agents

3. Phoenix & Friends (00:02:37)

4. The .new / .run TLDs (00:04:07)

5. Phoenix.new (00:06:03)

6. Phoenix system prompts (00:09:13)

7. Claude 4 vs the world (00:12:33)

8. What this is to Fly (00:14:47)

9. Bolt.new (00:17:15)

10. What's in a name (00:19:13)

11. How close we are (00:22:01)

12. New Phoenix direction? (00:28:06)

13. How Chris gets LLM value (00:30:36)

14. Sponsor: Depot (00:35:23)

https://depot.dev

15. Let the vibe coding begin (00:37:31)

16. Coding, coding, coding (00:41:52)

17. Stop for the meat bags (00:43:57)

18. Hitting issues (00:46:37)

19. It works! (00:48:20)

20. Theory of the monkeys (00:53:06)

21. Just ask the agent (00:58:36)

22. Agent Hot or Not (00:59:44)

23. Let the agents judge... seriously? (01:01:19)

24. Auditing the worst code (01:03:27)

25. Reframing hallucinate (01:05:15)

26. The code analysis summary (01:07:31)

27. The money spent (01:09:04)

28. Existing apps (01:14:03)

29. Our agent future (01:15:03)

30. Adam can't believe it (01:18:14)

31. Agent on a yak shave (01:21:52)

32. Take a little break (01:23:53)

33. One image vs many (01:25:46)

34. Exciting times (01:27:36)

35. The means to the end (01:28:49)

36. Just talk to it (01:30:24)

37. Bye, friends (01:32:49)

38. Coming up next (01:34:18)