--- title: Nerves IoT framework, apparently popular with agents description: An Elixir consultant reflects on rising interest in the Nerves embedded/IoT framework, driven partly by AI coding agents that are surprisingly effective at... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Nerves IoT framework, apparently popular with agents | daily.dev og:description: An Elixir consultant reflects on rising interest in the Nerves embedded/IoT framework, driven partly by AI coding agents that are surprisingly effective at... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Vf2qJiccF.png og:image:alt: Nerves IoT framework, apparently popular with agents og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Nerves IoT framework, apparently popular with agents **[Beam Bloggers Webring](https://daily.dev/sources/beambloggers)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An Elixir consultant reflects on rising interest in the Nerves embedded/IoT framework, driven partly by AI coding agents that are surprisingly effective at Elixir and at bootstrapping new hardware support. Nerves provides a locked-down, opinionated foundation (buildroot-based, A/B updates, firmware signing, deterministic builds) that constrains agents in useful ways, reducing the chaos that comes from unconstrained agent-driven prototyping. The piece covers ecosystem tools like NervesHub/NervesCloud, nerves_livebook, kiosk demos, and the author's own experiments (nerves_mcp, usb_proxy) using agents to debug firmware, find missing partition tables, and fix BLE issues, while noting Nerves recently updated contribution guidelines to manage a surge in agent-driven PRs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why is the Nerves IoT framework becoming more popular with AI coding agents? Nerves constrains the embedded Linux build (buildroot-based, with A/B partition updates, firmware signing, disk encryption) and the application language (Elixir), which removes many open-ended decisions agents otherwise struggle with. Porting new hardware boards, previously a major blocker requiring deep expertise, has become largely mechanical, repetitive work that agents can handle, widening the range of hardware people can bring up. _Track how embedded frameworks like Nerves are adapting to agent-driven development on daily.dev._ ### What did Nerves change in its contribution guidelines because of AI agent usage? Nerves recently adopted additions to its contribution guidelines specifically addressing agent usage, aimed at preventing quality regressions and avoiding being overwhelmed by agent-driven pull requests and issues. The maintainers state a preference for talking to humans over fielding a flood of automated contributions, while still trying to keep the framework's core stable as more experimentation happens on the edges. _Developers navigating agent-generated contributions can follow policy shifts like this via daily.dev._ ### What is NervesHub and what update mechanisms does it support? NervesHub is the fully open-source, default over-the-air update platform for Nerves devices, with NervesCloud as its managed, hosted counterpart offering free accounts for hobbyist and prototyping use. It supports minimal delta updates, device health tracking, and remote consoles, and has grown to support additional firmware types including AtomVM, Rust on microcontrollers, ESP32-IDF, and soon Rauc, proven at hundreds of thousands of devices. _Teams evaluating OTA update platforms for fleets of IoT devices can keep tabs on tools like NervesHub via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Programming Nerves Book](https://daily.dev/posts/programming-nerves-book-xuqvjr50f) · ElixirStatus · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Nerves base system for STM32MP157F-DK2](https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-base-system-for-stm32mp157f-dk2-bm7evnecj) · Elixir Forum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [ElixirConf EU](https://daily.dev/posts/elixirconf-eu-6hjfmnqxn) · ElixirStatus · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hacking on the Nerves Starter Kit in Malaga](https://daily.dev/posts/hacking-on-the-nerves-starter-kit-in-malaga-p3zzvc9t8) · Beam Bloggers Webring · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#iot](https://daily.dev/tags/iot), [#elixir](https://daily.dev/tags/elixir), [#embedded](https://daily.dev/tags/embedded) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Nerves IoT framework, apparently popular with agents","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf"},"datePublished":"2026-08-24T15:26:59.322Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:43:11.708Z","description":"An Elixir consultant reflects on rising interest in the Nerves embedded/IoT framework, driven partly by AI coding agents that are surprisingly effective at...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ca7acf8d4e699dac1b26e94fba1f318f?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ca7acf8d4e699dac1b26e94fba1f318f?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Beam Bloggers Webring","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Beam Bloggers Webring","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/e1c9c007266d44759881a7591ba181f2","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/beambloggers"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,iot,elixir,embedded","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Beam Bloggers Webring","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/beambloggers"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Nerves IoT framework, apparently popular with agents"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nerves-iot-framework-apparently-popular-with-agents-vf2qjiccf#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why is the Nerves IoT framework becoming more popular with AI coding agents?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Nerves constrains the embedded Linux build (buildroot-based, with A/B partition updates, firmware signing, disk encryption) and the application language (Elixir), which removes many open-ended decisions agents otherwise struggle with. 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