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Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

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Re: Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

#51

Post by brap »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #35

I worked with Mastra for three months and it is awesome. Thank you for making a great product. One thing to consider is that it felt clunky working with workflows and branching logic with non LLM agents. I have a strong preference for using rules based logic and heuristics first. That way, if I do need to bring in the big gun LLM models, I already have the context engineering solved. To me, an agent means anything wi…

I learned that every step that can be solved reasonably without an LLM, should be solved without an LLM. Reliability, cost, performance, etc.

I try to transfer as much work as I can out of LLMs and into deterministic steps. This includes most of the “orchestration” layer which is usually deterministic by nature.

Sprinkle a little bit of AI in the right places and you’ll get something that appears genuinely intelligent. Rely too much on AI and it’s dumb as fuck.

Make their tasks very small and simple (ideally, one step), give them only the context and tools that they need and nothing else, and provide them with feedback when they inevitably mess up (ideally, deterministically), and hope for the best.

Re: Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

#52

Post by __jonas »

calcsam wrote: post #48
avaer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had some heartfelt advice for the Mastra devrel team it would be to shut up about about Gatsby. I'm a happy Mastra user and I'm biased to their success. But I think linking it to an unrelated project is only going to matter to non-technical CXOs who choose technology based on names not merits. And that's not the audience Mastra needs to appeal to to be successful. Good dev tools and techs trickle from the bottom…

Thanks for the feedback. We hear from a lot of devs with fond memories of Gatsby but if it cuts the opposite way for you that's also fair! Most of us spent a lot of the last decade building Gatsby so it's sort of a personal identity/pride thing for us more than a marketing thing. But maybe we need to keep our identity small! Either way, thanks for saying something, worth thinking about.

I don’t mean to be provocative, but given that it’s in the title of the post, of course I checked whether the marketing page for this framework was built with Gatsby - seems like it’s Next.js though. Any reason Gatsby was not chosen if it’s a point of pride?

Re: Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

#55

Post by jakubmazanec »

__jonas wrote: post #52
calcsam wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. We hear from a lot of devs with fond memories of Gatsby but if it cuts the opposite way for you that's also fair! Most of us spent a lot of the last decade building Gatsby so it's sort of a personal identity/pride thing for us more than a marketing thing. But maybe we need to keep our identity small! Either way, thanks for saying something, worth thinking about.

I don’t mean to be provocative, but given that it’s in the title of the post, of course I checked whether the marketing page for this framework was built with Gatsby - seems like it’s Next.js though. Any reason Gatsby was not chosen if it’s a point of pride?

My guess is Gatsby wasn't chosen because it was a bad framework that is practically deprecated [1]

[1] https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2024/03/end-of-gatsby-journ...

Re: Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

#57

Post by redwood »

esperent wrote: post #50
calcsam wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a ton of respect for the AI SDK team. Initially we only used AI SDK model routing, but now we also have our own built-in model routing as well. I see each of us having different architectures. AI SDK is more low-level, and Mastra is more integrated with storage powering our studio, evals, memory, workflow suspend/resume etc.

What a corporate and wishy washy response that just basically repeated what I said back at me. I was hoping to actually engage with you but I guess you just came here to do marketing. > AI SDK is more low-level AI SDK was more low level. My question was, since the latest V6 release is moving towards higher level components, what do you think about that? How will you continue to differentiate your product if Vercel ma…

It's a mix of savvy and diplomacy to neither attack a competitor in the open nor be forced to reveal their strategic way of thinking into your way of viewing things. This is not a winner take all space. Corporate yes but you can be more self aware yourself.

Re: Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

#58

Post by redwood »

mrcwinn wrote: post #19
calcsam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: lessons from coding agents, we're building some of the key abstractions like sandboxes, filesystem, skills/knowledge as Mastra primitives in over the next month. For any agent you're shipped to production though you probably want a harness that's open-source so you more fully control / can customize the experience.

I think that’s fair, totally, but I also think a Skill would be considered a primitive in and of itself by Anthropic. So to me it’s still wrapping an open primitive. Anyway, trade offs.

The old school open source community would get heartburn reading this but my has the world changed.

Re: Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs

#59

Post by isuckatcoding »

microflash wrote: post #3

Why should I use this over say Strands Agents [1] or Spring AI [2]? [1]: https://strandsagents.com [2]: https://spring.io/projects/spring-ai

Strands documentation seems very underwhelming compared to Mastra
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