Shuttle has launched Neptune, a universal AI platform engineer that understands code, generates a deterministic infrastructure spec, provisions cloud resources, and integrates with AI coding tools and IDEs. 

Shuttle is best known as an open-source cloud platform for developing backend applications in Rust. Shuttle treats infrastructure as code, so developers can define resources such as databases with code annotations and deploy them without having the manage the cloud setup. 

The new product, Neptune, extends the concept by supporting all languages and providing a virtual AI platform engineer. The Shuttle team says that while tools such as Cursor and Claude Code provide AI support for code generation, developers still need to deploy and run the apps that have been created, which means juggling scripts, configs, and CI/CD pipelines. This causes its own bottleneck.

Neptune deals with this problem by turning AI-generated code into reliable, running systems. The developers say Neptune is fully language-agnostic and connects to any repo or AI coding tool. It integrates directly with IDE copilots and agents for fully conversational deployments. It has a deterministic infrastructure model - through neptune.json and compatibility reports, so every action and process produces an identical, predictable outcome every time it is run with the same inputs, no matter what else has changed externally. 

While Shuttle supports a single cloud pipeline, Neptune is cloud-agnostic and extensible, supporting AWS, GCP, and Azure through a simple plugin model. Neptune consists of three components; a deterministic specification, a Kubernetes-native control plane, and an AI workflow. 

Projects start with neptune.json, a precise description of the workload and its required resources. Kubernetes and Crossplane are then used to turn the specification into real cloud infrastructure. The developers say that higher-level abstractions are expanded into the underlying provider resources, but Neptune manages the entire lifecycle, setting up the networking and identity layers, provisioning databases and object storage, and configuring DNS and TLS. It also handles secrets and automatic rotation, and orchestrates rollouts and runtime behavior.

Behind the scenes this is all handled by controllers that continuously reconcile state, repair drift, and apply safety checks.

When Neptune provisions a resource, it returns information such as the exact physical identifiers, connection details, and a description of configured permissions. This avoids the risk of AI tools guessing environment variables or inventing configuration. Instead, the application code is updated based on the real, provider-generated values. Neptune deploys and continuously reconciles the system. The developers say the result is a platform that is simple to use, technically rigorous, and built for the pace of AI-assisted development.

The Neptune team says that while the first wave of AI tools accelerated writing, this next wave, led by Neptune, accelerates shipping, making backend deployment feel as natural as writing code itself:

"You can use it directly from your AI coding tools, turning what you build into something real without ever leaving your flow. It's the connective tissue between creativity and reliability, letting developers move at AI speed without sacrificing safety."

"You write, test, deploy, and watch your idea come alive, all from the same window. No tab-switching, no cloud dashboards, no YAML to debug. Just flow."

The Neptune beta is open now to early builders. 

More Information

Shuttle Website

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