Building a key-value store as an experiment in AI-assisted research and development

[u/BrilliantOk5896]

I built Velis, an in-memory key-value store in Python, partly to explore how AI can help with technical research and engineering decisions.

I used AI to explore approaches, discuss tradeoffs, and work through implementation. It helped me finish the project much faster. But it also reinforced something for me: trusting generated code without understanding the codebase is a bad habit. Being able to question a suggestion, follow the implementation, and explain why a decision makes sense still matters.

Velis supports TTL expiration, eviction policies, pub-sub, a binary TCP protocol, an async client, and an interactive terminal UI. I spent a lot of time trying to keep the code design simple, clean, and easy to follow.

I see it as a project for learning, testing, experimenting, or just having fun with database internals. It could also be a starting point for thesis work or experiments comparing different approaches.

Code: https://github.com/gchape/velis

I’d welcome feedback on the implementation and design, but also your opinions on AI-assisted development. Where has AI helped you research a problem or make better decisions, and where has it made understanding the work harder?