Deep Dive · Xiaohu Explains

Cloudflare's principal engineer on his new platform — Gadgets is like Google Docs, but every document is a standalone app

He started with a story anyone who's worked at a software company will recognize, then explained why the root cause behind it can now be overturned.
Too Long; Didn't Read
  • Cloudflare's principal engineer built a new platform where apps work like documents in Google Docs — everyone gets their own copy, and if it's not enough, they can have an AI change it on the spot.
  • He's comfortable handing over code changes to AI because a two-layer sandbox keeps data contained, even if the AI writes buggy code.
  • He asked Claude to edit his slides, but Claude found its tools lacking — so it first added a feature almost no human would use, then used it to finish the drawing.
⚑ This piece is based on the recording of a live talk at the AI Engineer conference on June 30, 2026. The full talk is 18 minutes and 53 seconds. We transcribed and translated it. The system shown in the talk wasn't public at the time; it was open-sourced 5 weeks later as Cloudflare OS. Implementation details may have changed since.
Opening

What is Cloudflare OS, and why Kenton Varda says cloud architecture went wrong

At the AI Engineer conference on June 30, Kenton Varda — Cloudflare's principal engineer and the creator of Workers — spent 18 minutes making a case: the foundation of cloud computing we're all standing on was built in the wrong direction, and that's been true for 25 years.

What's wrong? Today's web apps run one codebase that serves everyone, so you can't even change a button. His system, Gadgets, flips that: each person gets their own full copy of the app, and if it's missing something, an AI can change it right then. Break it, and you only break your own copy. On August 5, it was open-sourced as Cloudflare OS.

First, let's be clear about what Cloudflare OS actually is, or the rest won't land:

  • It opens like an office suite: hundreds or thousands of “documents” inside; you click one, edit, and share it. The difference is that each document is a full app with its own code, and the code can be completely different in each one.
  • AI builds the apps: a single prompt produces a collaborative whiteboard; if it's not enough, you ask the AI to keep changing it.
  • What you share is code: export an app as a Blueprint — just the code, not your data. Whoever gets it spawns their own copy, and from then on, you each go your own way.
  • The platform owns permissions: who can see and who can edit is enforced by the system itself; the app never touches that layer, so it has no way to screw up access control.
  • Everything except the LLM runs on Cloudflare Workers: no containers, no database, and you can run the whole stack on your own machine.
The full talk, 18 minutes and 53 seconds. The original had no subtitles. We transcribed, translated, and burned in these bilingual subtitles. Source: AI Engineer World's Fair, June 30, 2026.
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The Root Cause

Software's death spiral: users file requests, and years later, zero features ship

The talk didn't open with the product. It opened with a story that hits home for anyone who has ever worked at a software company.

A developer ships an app to users. Some are happy; others say it's not quite there without an extra feature. The user goes to the developer's stand-in, the product manager, who files the request into Jira — where it promptly sinks without a trace.

Every once in a while, a PM wants the feature themselves, so it makes it onto a roadmap. The developer builds these things one by one, and each one serves only a tiny handful of people. Each also crams a few more if-statements into the code. The code gets messier, and the features get more boring.