Adama tooling: CLI, devbox, harness, SMTP, and the service bag

2022 – Apr 2026 · age 40–44

What it was

The workbench around the platform. A 110-command CLI was compiled from one XML definition into nine thousand lines of router, arguments and help. The devbox was a whole production node in a terminal: save an Adama file and it recompiled, linted the schema change, redeployed and ran the document's tests, with a language server, hot reload for templates, test users, an AI debug page, an MCP endpoint for a coding assistant, and time-slip to move the clock forward days at a time. Around it sat an inbound SMTP server that checked SPF, DKIM and DMARC, fourteen integration services including Web Push and a PDF typesetter written from primitives, a cluster harness prototype, two solo modes, and 569 error codes meant to have one home each.

Wins, for the age

• At forty-four, the human wrote a mail server that pauses reading to apply back-pressure, requires TLS before MAIL FROM, and validates three email authentication standards, then pinned the secure defaults with tests.
• Built a devbox that made a distributed platform usable by one person, and let an AI coding assistant share the same loop.
• Implemented Web Push encryption from Java's raw crypto primitives, no library, and a Markdown to PDF engine with hard caps on everything.
• Gave the REPL time travel, so a cron job due next week could be tested this afternoon.
• Wrote down in 2022 that every error source deserves its own code, and generated a readable table of all 569 from annotations.

What it taught

• For a solo developer, the devbox is the product. It grew fastest at the end for a reason.
• Generate the tedious layers, and they stay consistent.
• Harden what faces the internet first. SMTP got three weeks and 228 tests; the devbox, facing only its author, got none.
• A principle without a checker is a wish. The one-code-per-call-site rule was never tested, and literal codes like 42 crept in.

Genealogy

Ancestors: Edu Lang: a program run step by step, every frame of state laid bare. Zen Console Proc: a Quake-style console of commands and variables, the first REPL. Descendants: none on record. The devbox loop and the SMTP bridge remain here to be lifted. Part of: Adama.

Epitaph

A hundred and ten commands from one XML file, a devbox that could rewind the clock and talk to a coding assistant, and a mail server that checked every signature. Its harness could not start a node.