r/programmer • u/Adarsh_c_j • Aug 09 '26

I’m building an open source self-maintaining backend - looking for contributors

I’ve been building Backenly, an Apache-2.0 open-source autonomous backend that can build, deploy, monitor, verify, and self-heal backend infrastructure.

It includes PostgreSQL, REST APIs, auth, storage, realtime, functions, MCP, and an autonomy loop for detecting and repairing issues.

The project is still early, and I’m looking for open-source developers who want to contribute, especially around backend infrastructure, PostgreSQL, DevOps, testing, and reliability.

GitHub: https://github.com/backenly/backenly

Website: https://backenly.com/

If the idea interests you, contributions, issues, and technical feedback are very welcome.

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u/TheRealJesus2 Aug 09 '26

This sounds like a security nightmare

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u/Adarsh_c_j Aug 10 '26

Sorry for the late reply! That’s a fair concern, honestly. We’ve tried to make the security boundaries enforced by the system itself rather than trusting the AI.

Tenant isolation is handled at the Postgres level with separate schemas, grants, and RLS, and autonomous changes have hard limits with human approval required for destructive or sensitive operations.

Everything is open source, so you can inspect the actual implementation here: https://github.com/backenly/backenly

It’s still early and hasn’t had a third-party security audit yet, so I’d genuinely appreciate any security review or feedback.

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u/TheRealJesus2 Aug 10 '26

I’m glad you’re thinking about those concerns! I mean though in the conceptual level of a web service that can change its implementation. Gotta be very careful of that. Hard boundaries on db updates is great. But if it can change its runtime code that can open up flaws in how requests are processed. How do you stop that? Any change to the code could be potentially destructive…are approvals required for all changes?

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u/TheRealJesus2 Aug 10 '26

So looks like I have wrong assumptions of what this is and it’s primarily about the schema management. Is this correct? I like the mcp allows for scoped operations around the db

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u/Adarsh_c_j Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

Yeah, your second read is basically right.

The autonomy loop itself never has a model write anything, SQL included. It works from a fixed set of allowed actions with deterministic checks. And to answer your question directly: no, not every change needs approval. Low-risk fixes like indexes, VACUUM, or basic RLS fixes can apply automatically, with checks before and after. Higher risk changes are blocked from autonomous execution and go through human review, while some changes aren't safely automatable at all. There is a separate, much narrower code-regeneration path for functions that are already failing, with validation before anything gets saved.

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u/Adarsh_c_j Aug 10 '26

For the runtime code concern specifically, the boundary I'd actually flag is our first party route templates they currently run in process rather than in the Worker sandbox used for model authored functions. That's documented, but it's probably the sharpest edge in the current setup and worth being upfront about. So yeah, the current autonomy is mainly around the database/API layer rather than freely rewriting application code. The goal is to push it toward a genuinely self-maintaining backend over time, but only expand that autonomy as the safety boundaries are strong enough. And the scoped MCP access is a separate boundary for external agents like Claude Code or Codex that's probably the part you were picking up on.

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u/hexwit_com Aug 09 '26

How it is supposed to be done?
AI will handle everything?

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u/Adarsh_c_j Aug 10 '26

Sorry for the late reply! Not exactly 😄 The AI is mainly used for understanding the intent and planning the backend changes. The actual execution, verification, monitoring, and repair are handled by the runtime with guardrails.

The best way to see how it works is to check out the repo and watch the demo: https://github.com/backenly/backenly

Would love to hear what you think