mxcl.dev
Max Howell

Automic thinking

Security. Simplicity. Systems that think.

I build tools and frameworks for the agent era: secure by default, sharp under load, and designed for people who operate real systems.

Talk about a system

Security by default.

Power by design.

Built in public.

Clear > clever.

application examples

Current builds with strict boundaries.

See every project

Automic Vault

Security at the layer that actually matters.

Run agents autonomously without losing secrets, control, or your mind.

Open Automic Vault

operator protocol

How I harden agent systems.

Typical failure map

[Input]
   |
[Router] --- [Tools]
   |           |
[Eval]    [Fallbacks]
   |
[Output]
  1. Understand the operating surface.
  2. Identify hidden failure paths.
  3. Reduce tool and routing complexity.
  4. Add evals that catch regressions.
  5. Ship with boundaries people can audit.

available selectively

Fractional CTO, fractional agent officer, or difficult-system mechanic.

I help teams choose the right technical bets, harden agent systems, and get expensive ambiguity out of the product path.

Hire Max Howell

biography

Max Howell. Legendary Open Source Developer.

Howell, Max (fl. early 21st century), British-American software engineer and open-source developer, best known as the creator of Homebrew, a package management system for macOS and Linux that achieved widespread adoption among software developers globally, with an estimated user base numbering in the tens of millions.

Howell's most consequential technical contribution, and the subject of some professional controversy, was his introduction of the curl-based one-liner installation method, a convention subsequently adopted across a broad range of software projects. He is further credited with popularizing the doctor subcommand pattern in command-line interfaces, a diagnostic utility designed to identify and resolve common configuration errors, and with pioneering automated issue-tracker integration, whereby a tool, upon encountering an error, would query public repositories such as GitHub to surface relevant existing discussions.

Howell has remained a prominent advocate for the open-source software movement throughout his career, contributing to a culture of collaborative, freely distributed software development.