I spent 20 years in safety-critical software. Now I'm applying that rigor to AI applications.
I am a Systems Engineer by trade. I’ve spent decades ensuring that planes don’t fall out of the sky and medical devices don’t fail patients. My philosophy has always been: Clean Architecture, strict boundaries, and zero tolerance for "magic."
But the world is changing. The rise of AI and "vibe coding" tempts us to trade architecture for speed. I believe we can have both.
This blog is the documentation of my experiments in the "Messy Middle" of the new economy. It is the story of how I am bootstrapping complex, full-stack AI platforms (like FRAKTAG and AMODX) without sacrificing engineering discipline.
Here, I dissect the move from Monoliths to Microservices, the integration of RAG pipelines into Java Spring Boot, and the reality of building serverless architectures on AWS.
I am building in public. I am sharing the code, the architecture decisions, and the painful lessons learned. Welcome to The Foundry.
Here are my articles on AMODX
AMODX Sprint 5: Physical Goods Commerce Engine
Sprint 3 added digital goods. Sprint 4 added visual polish. Sprint 5 is about enabling physical goods e-commerce.
AMODX Sprint 4: From Functional CMS to Commercial-Grade Operating System
AMODX Sprint 4 summary. Implemented versioning, content graph, SEO fixes, 1024MB Lambdas, and Research Signals module. Moved from functional CMS to commercial-grade operating system.
AMODX Sprint 3 - Added Commerce, Teams, and "God Mode"
Sprint 3 added commerce, RBAC, themes, and blogging to AMODX. We moved from prototype to production-grade agency operating system. Zero plugins. Pure serverless.
AMODX Sprint 2 Completed: The Agency Operating System is Production-Ready
By Andrei Roman Principal Architect, The Foundry AMODX started as a question: "What if we rebuilt WordPress today, knowing what we know now?" The answer is amo
WordPress Hosting is a Grift. I Built a Serverless OS to Escape It.
By Andrei Roman Principal Architect, The Foundry I remember the exact moment I decided to burn the ships. I was looking at a renewal invoice from Bluehost. I ha
AMODX Wordpress Alternative: Why Agencies Need an "AI Operating System"
By Andrei Roman Principal Architect, The Foundry For the last 15 years, the answer to "I need a website" has been "WordPress." It powers 40% of the web. It is t
By the way, this blog is entirely hosted on AmodX.
Here are my articles on FRAKTAG
FRAKTAG Evolution: From RAG Script to Modular Knowledge Engine
FRAKTAG architectural evolution solving six technical problems: stochastic LLM outputs, runtime portability, vector search limitations, conversation performance, GPU thrashing, and context overflow.
Introducing FRAKTAG: The Fractal Knowledge Engine
FRAKTAG: A fractal knowledge engine with human-supervised ingestion. Five days from prototype to functional. Replaces flat RAG with structural navigation and strict data taxonomy.
As a side note, FRAKTAG is now able to replace the entire coaching app I wrote last year, all by itself. And it costs WAY less to run since I select which sources to use instead of injecting the whole knowledge base for the AI to untangle.