TiDB

Key Takeaways TiDB is MySQL-compatible, so Prisma connects with provider = "mysql" and existing MySQL schemas work unchanged. Use the @tidbcloud/prisma-adapter to query over HTTPS instead of TCP — this is required for serverless functions and edge runtimes (Vercel Edge, Cloudflare Workers) and avoids TiDB Cloud’s connection limits. The adapter only covers Prisma Client...

Key Takeaways Open weight models are stage one of a four-stage sequence: artifact, factory, connective tissue, governance. Software took 30 years. AI is moving faster. The objections to open weight models, on support, security, liability, and economics, all hit open source a decade ago. Every one lost to time. Weights are not source code. You cannot d...

Editor’s note: Bill Kendall wrote this post during his time at PingCAP. It was originally published in January 2022 and updated in August 2026 to reflect TiDB’s agent state stack.

Key Takeaways Monolithic databases hit a hard ceiling: one machine, one failure domain, and a cost curve that steepens as you scale up. Distributed database ...

Key Takeaways Agentic AI architecture has five layers: reasoning, tools, memory, state, and guardrails. Frameworks handle the first two; your storage choice handles the rest. Vector search solves semantic retrieval only. It does not provide authoritative records, durable workflow state, or transactional updates. Production agents store far more than e...

Key Takeaways Serverless databases scale to zero and bill by usage, matching bursty agent traffic. AI apps need four persistence layers: memory, files, operational state, and retrieval data. Evaluate the engine, not the label. Connection behavior and cold starts matter most. Fragmented stacks accrete. One engine removes system boundaries and consis...