This article walks through Workflow1111, a rebuild of AUTOMATIC1111's stable-diffusion-webui as a 73-node Gradio Workflow canvas, arguing that node graphs can mix local Python functions with remote model calls. It shows that every output node becomes a REST endpoint and MCP tool, and that visitors can run pipelines under their own quota. Tradeoffs are acknowledged: there is no loop operator, and roughly two-thirds of nodes run in-process without a network call.
Fly.io pitches Sprites—instantly created, near-free-when-idle cloud computers with durable filesystems—as a better agent runtime than stateless sandboxes. The substantive argument: the MCP-vs-CLI debate conflates layers; progressive disclosure is about what enters the context window, while MCP handles transport, auth, and structured results, so plugins can layer skills over a hosted MCP server. It is vendor marketing, but the layering distinction, safety annotations, and guardrail defaults (org scoping, five-Sprite cap) are the meat.