You’re not the user anymore | Layer’s Andrew Hamilton

**Andrew Zigler** (0:06)
Welcome to Dev Interrupted. I'm your host, Andrew Zigler.

**Ben Lloyd Pearson** (0:09)
And I'm your host, Ben Lloyd Pearson.

**Andrew Zigler** (0:12)
Today we're talking about Google donating their agentic protocol A to A to the Linux Foundation, why everything wants to be your new IDE, the newest entrant to look who's AI native now, and an update to one of last week's biggest stories. Ben, you know the drill.

**Ben Lloyd Pearson** (0:30)
You know what, let's just keep it simple and start right at the top, because I love the Linux Foundation and I want to hear what's going on over there.

**Andrew Zigler** (0:36)
Yeah, so there was a recent announcement that Google donated the A to A protocol, that's the agent to agent protocol, to the Linux Foundation. This was a formation actually of a project within the Linux Foundation, which is their typical approach to fostering an ecosystem of tools. This is a project that they're working on together with AWS, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, all of the big players really. While it'll be hosted on the Linux Foundation, it'll be seeded by Google's background for having created the tool. Now, the A2A protocol, if you're not familiar, it's an open standard for communication and collaboration between distinct AI agents. You can think of it as a language that allows agents to speak to one another, commit information back and forth, and it will be another critical step in orchestrating the AI agent platform of the future. I'm interested to see what this means for development for A2A, how the stewardship might evolve as a community that's hosted in the Linux Foundation. I think it opens up a lot of doors for innovation here.

**Ben Lloyd Pearson** (1:38)
I really love the Linux Foundation, as I mentioned. I briefly worked there many years ago. I have a lot of friends over there. It's a great organization and truly just wonderful stewards for open source projects.
I think the best testament to this is the fact that they got Microsoft to get on the good side of open source software. I'm never going to forget when I first saw Microsoft show up to a Linux Foundation event with all of their flying pig swag, because nobody believed that this company that previously called open source of cancer would show up in that way. So Linux Foundation has done a lot of great work. I think if you're out there wondering, where is AI headed in the next five years or 10 years maybe? Looking a little further ahead than I think we typically are, just because of how fast this technology is changing. But if you're looking ahead, I think this is where we're going to see the real productivity and the real fundamental changes happen from AI. So I think watch this project, watch what's going on here because much like how HTTP created a lot of new opportunities via the Internet, I think there's a similar potential here with A2A when it comes to agentic AI. So I think the potential impact here is pretty extraordinary. The fact that it's now a neutral organization within the Linux Foundation paints a pretty bright picture for its future. So speaking of Google, I guess we have a few AI updates that we wanted to talk about. The first one I think is Gemini CLI. So what can you tell us about that, Andrew?

**Andrew Zigler** (3:07)
Yeah. So Gemini CLI just dropped in the last week. It's our open source AI agent from Google backed by Gemini. It's another entrant into the agentic coding tool space. These are tools that you can use in your CLI that allow you to interact directly with your tools. They are agent conversations that have tools and can operate on your system. You can use these types of tools in lots of different ways. Some folks use them in the IDE, like my daily driver's cursor. But lately, I've been actually trying out a lot of these coding agent tools in the CLI. I like to live there sometimes. I've had the luck with Claude Code and GitHub Copilot, so I'm definitely going to be checking out Gemini. I also recommend SourceGraphs AMP. All of them are really well-formed coding agents. Though I will say recently, I've been using Goose probably the most in one-off sessions with local AI and I also use an MCP server with it. But I've been practicing on Goose because I'm actually going on the great Goose off later today. This is an event that happens through Block, the company that created Goose. They have a YouTube vibe coding show where they bring folks together to try to build things on Goose on a YouTube live stream. So I'm going to be there probably right after this actually. If you miss it, be sure to go check it out on YouTube and see how I did. Let me know what you think. And most importantly, if you haven't tried out these tools, it's worth experimenting with this one from Gemini. The Gemini CLI's free tier has a high usage limit, and it's the highest in the market actually. So it's a great way to try out agentic coding for the first time.