Vercel’s Ship Event: Open-Source Agents and Shadow AI Fixes
This week in London, Vercel’s Ship event dropped two big ideas: eve, an open-source agent framework, and Passport, a tool to rein in shadow AI. Both aim to simplify how developers build and control AI-powered apps without losing their minds—or their jobs—to unchecked automation.
At first glance, eve looks like another framework in a crowded field. But its simplicity might be its superpower. Built on TypeScript and Markdown, it lets you define an agent as a directory of files—no PhD in prompt engineering required. Instructions, skills, model providers, tools, auth, channels, and schedules all live in plain files. It’s a "fill in the blanks" approach, as Vercel CTO Malte Ubl put it. And yes, it’s sandboxed on isolated VMs by default, so your rogue agent won’t accidentally email your CEO at 3 AM.
Then there’s Passport, an OpenID Connect layer designed to corral the chaos of employee-built AI apps. Because let’s face it: when developers start vibe-coding with AI, IT teams lose sleep. Passport puts all those Next.js side projects behind your identity provider—Okta, Microsoft Entra, you name it—so at least someone knows what’s running on Vercel’s dime.
For more on AI-driven surveillance, read about Anthropic’s secret tracker in Claude Code.
How eve Works: TypeScript, Markdown, and Sandboxed VMs
eve agents are defined in a directory structure. You get files for instructions, skills, model providers, tools, authentication, channels, and scheduling. It’s opinionated but flexible. The framework handles the lifecycle, so you’re not left babysitting a finicky state machine.
A simple testing tool lets you exercise the agent and evaluate results before deployment. And because everything’s sandboxed on isolated VMs, you can experiment without fear of breaking production—or worse, leaking secrets.
Deployment is straightforward: vercel deploy pushes your agent to Vercel’s platform, while npx eve dev lets you run it locally. The framework supports any model provider that Vercel’s AI SDK connects to, and there’s even an AI Gateway for multi-provider failover. Ubl insists it’s not tied to Vercel’s platform: "100% committed to making it work everywhere." Though early adopters hit a snag—you currently need a Vercel login even if you’re using a different model provider. A minor hiccup, but one worth noting.
Enterprise Apps & Agents: The Four Pillars
Vercel previewed a suite of enterprise tools alongside eve and Passport:
- Vercel Connect: Replaces static secrets with short-lived OAuth and API tokens. No more hardcoded keys in Git history.
- Vercel Passport: The OpenID Connect layer that puts all team apps and AI agents behind your identity provider. It’s the answer to shadow AI—those off-the-books projects that IT never signed off on.
- Enterprise Managed Users: Directory sync for org-managed Vercel access. Because manually provisioning accounts is so 2020.
- Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC): Run Vercel’s platform on your own AWS infrastructure. For the paranoid—or the compliance-conscious.
The pitch is clear: Vercel wants to be the default home for enterprise AI apps, not just developer side projects.
The Shadow AI Problem
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: developers are already building AI-powered apps, often outside IT’s watchful eye. They default to Next.js and Vercel because it’s easy. But easy doesn’t mean compliant. Passport is Vercel’s attempt to bridge that gap—giving enterprises a way to monitor and control these apps without stifling innovation.
It’s a smart move. Shadow AI is the new shadow IT, and Vercel’s betting that enterprises would rather manage it than ban it.
For more on AI-driven surveillance, read about Alibaba’s massive scraping campaign against Claude AI.
Infrastructure: Immutable Deployments and Cost Claims
Vercel’s infrastructure story is worth a closer look. Every deployment is immutable—push to Git, and you get fresh infrastructure from scratch. It’s ideal for AI agents, where reproducibility matters.
Then there’s the cost angle. Vercel claims up to 95% Lambda cost reduction by reusing idle instances. They argue that AWS customers need over 35% utilization to match Vercel’s pricing. It’s a bold claim, and one that’ll likely draw scrutiny from competitors like Cloudflare, whose Workers use a bespoke V8 isolates runtime. Vercel, meanwhile, runs standard Node.js, Python, and PHP on VMs.
Time will tell if the savings hold up in the real world.
The Bigger Picture
Vercel’s Ship event wasn’t just about new features. It was a statement: the company wants to own the AI agent lifecycle, from development to deployment to governance. With eve, they’re betting on simplicity and openness. With Passport, they’re addressing the elephant in the room—shadow AI—before it becomes a crisis.
Whether it’s enough to lure enterprises away from custom solutions remains to be seen. But one thing’s clear: Vercel’s playing the long game.