Head of Developer Relations at Dremio. I build and teach the open data lakehouse, and the agent infrastructure that should sit on top of it.
I am co-author of Apache Iceberg: The Definitive Guide and author of Apache Polaris: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly) and Architecting an Apache Iceberg Lakehouse (Manning). I then ship the catalogs, libraries, harnesses, and open contracts that make that material usable.
Orlando, FL · alexmerced.com · alexmercedcoder.dev · dev@alexmerced.com
Most lakehouse education stops at slides. Most agent tools lock identity inside one vendor loop.
I write the books, then I write the code, then I write the contracts so other tools can do the same:
- A named agent should live as a file you can diff, review, and reuse. Not as a process that dies with the session.
- A project should run as a graph of bounded agent loops, with briefs, budgets, success criteria, and human gates.
- The harness you already run should stay in charge of models, tools, sandboxing, and policy.
That is the work behind Open Agent Profile and the Agentic Graph Spec. It is also why Merced AI is a broker, not another agent loop.
| If you care about… | Open this |
|---|---|
| Portable agent identity | Open Agent Profile (OAP) 1.0 |
| Agent workflows with gates | Agentic Graph Spec (AGS) 1.0 |
| A terminal agent that remembers | MagAgent |
| Iceberg tables from Python | IceFrame |
| A Rust Iceberg catalog | Pangolin |
| Using the harnesses you already have | Merced AI |
These are the most important repositories in this profile. They are implementation-neutral, Apache-2.0, and meant to outlive any one CLI.
Open Agent Profile persists a named AI agent as data: role, model tier, tool surface, permissions, attached context, and what previous sessions learned. Three rules keep it safe to leave enabled. A profile may narrow capability and never widen it. An agent cannot rewrite its own contract. Learned state is treated as untrusted content.
Agentic Graph Spec describes a project as a DAG of bounded agentic loops. Each node is a unit of work an agent can run end to end. Each edge is a control-flow dependency. Intelligence is a portable tier, not a hardcoded model name, so a harness can route the work.
| Project | What it is |
|---|---|
| MagAgent | Terminal-native coding and productivity agent with persistent memory, skills, MCP, and OAP profiles |
| MagGraph | Rust graph memory: Markdown nodes, search, backlinks, recall bundles, Python bindings |
| Mag Command Center | Desktop UI over the MagAgent CLI, MagGraph memory, and local workbench state |
| Loro | Governed Python CLI harness for coding, data work, and AGS workflows |
| Merced AI | Local broker that discovers installed harnesses and runs portable OAP bots on them |
Mag is short for magpie. Corvids remember, manufacture tools, and plan ahead. That is the design brief.
| Project | What it is |
|---|---|
| Pangolin | Rust lakehouse catalog: Iceberg-compatible, multi-tenant, Git-style branching, federated catalogs |
| IceFrame | DataFrame-style Python API for Iceberg tables over REST catalogs, with local PyIceberg / PyArrow / Polars execution |
| Lakehouse Tools | Catalog and lakehouse utilities |
Pangolin and IceFrame are alpha. Use them, break them, file issues.
Start with the three publisher titles:
- Apache Iceberg: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly)
- Apache Polaris: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly)
- Architecting an Apache Iceberg Lakehouse (Manning)
The rest of the catalog, including the agentic analytics and AI engineering titles, lives at books.alexmerced.com.
I educate practitioners on open lakehouse architecture, Apache Iceberg, Apache Polaris, semantic layers, and agentic analytics through Data Lakehouse Hub, Iceberg Lakehouse, LinkedIn Learning, and the Datanation and Web Dev 101 podcasts.
I speak at Data Council, Data Day Texas, Øredev, Confluent Current, Subsurface, Iceberg Summit, and similar rooms. For talks, workshops, and panels: Contact@alexmerced.com.
In 2025 I was the inaugural winner of Dremio's CEO Award.
- Identity and routing: alexmerced.com
- Software and specs: alexmercedcoder.dev
- Agentic AI point of view: alexmercedai.com
- Biography: whoisalexmerced.com
- Newsletter: amdatalakehouse.substack.com
- LinkedIn · Bluesky · YouTube · X · dev.to
Apache Iceberg, Apache Polaris, Apache Parquet, and Apache Arrow are trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation. This profile is independent of the ASF.