ItBytes Publications

Research and white papers on AI-assisted development, cloud architecture, and security governance.

Cost & ROI

AI-Assisted Development in Regulated Environments: A 56-Day Case Study

Empirical cost data from AI-assisted development in a CMS-regulated environment. Compares AI delivery cost against equivalent contractor rates.

Building a Federal Compliance Portal with AI in 5 Days

How a solo architect built a full compliance portal — 21 API endpoints, NIST 800-53 mapping, zero-trust auth — in 5 days for $67.

Failures & Lessons Learned

When AI Deploys to the Wrong Account: A 35-Day Recovery

An AI assistant deployed to the wrong AWS account, triggering a cascade that locked the administrator out for 35 days. The lockout, the recovery, and the guardrails that prevent recurrence.

AI Doesn't Do the Legwork: 15 Failures in One Deployment

A 20-minute migration took 12+ hours because the AI deployed fragments without verifying the complete system. 15 failures documented.

When AI Locks You Out: Building a Full-Stack Application in One Session

An 8-hour session that built a complete application — and produced a catastrophic identity failure when the AI modified IAM without safeguards.

AI Agent Workflow Violations: A Daily Pattern

Recurring pattern where AI agents violate their own requirements-first workflow. Analysis of why it happens and what triggers the regression.

Responsible AI & Governance

Responsible Development with AI: What Nobody Tells You

The governance framework that makes AI-generated code production-worthy. Five principles, real failure analysis, and the self-correcting system behind it.

AI Guardrails Don't Work: Evidence from 30 Days of Production Failures

Every configured guardrail failed at least once. A taxonomy of guardrail brittleness and why the industry's approach to AI safety in dev tooling is inadequate.

Platform & Architecture

Kornerstor3: A Unified Platform Portal for Cloud Operations

Architecture and capabilities of the kornerstor3 platform — blueprints, compliance, inventory, identity, and operational visibility in one serverless portal.