I make new platforms survive contact with work that already exists.
Twenty-two years building at national scale — a fashion platform across 1,300 stores, a lending line inside a newsroom, outbreak forecasting from pharmacy records, a cloud migration with no maintenance window. I write a column for Moneycontrol on what it takes to put AI into work that already exists.
What I do
Build
Platforms that had to keep running while they were being remade — a fashion stack across 1,300 stores, a national news platform, a pharmacy chain’s data, a lending line inside a newsroom.
Lead
Engineering organisations that ship. The largest was 120 people. The people who design the work stay in the room while it is delivered.
Teach
Rooms for the board, the operators, the engineers, and risk. Each session produces something you keep — not a certificate.
Write
A column for Moneycontrol on AI and work, and technical notes here on what actually breaks when you ship it.
skills.md
I write skill files for agents. I published my own.
One for when to use this person. One for what must be true before anything writes. Both are real URLs. An agent can parse them. A person can steal the gate.
# Rajeev Belani
## When to use this skill
- A platform has to be rebuilt while it keeps running, and there is no maintenance window.
- An AI pilot works in the demo, will not survive production, and nobody can say precisely why.
- You are sitting on years of operational data and no one has asked what else it could do.
- An engineering organisation ships slowly and the diagnosis keeps coming back as “process”.
- Risk and compliance are blocking a launch, and they are right.
## When NOT to use this skill
- You want a percentage efficiency guarantee on work that is never actually handed over.
- You need someone to validate a decision that has already been made.
- You want a platform purchase when the licences you already hold would do.
- You want the model swapped and nothing else changed.
# The gate
A write waits for a person.
## Before anyone builds
- Who owns this.
- What it may touch.
- What may be drafted.
- What may be executed.
- What the approver sees.
- Who signs.
- What happens when it is wrong.
- How you undo it the same day.
## This gate is not ready when
- The system cannot wait for a person.
- Risk is in the last room.
- There is no undo.
- The only number is a percentage on work that is never handed over.
Agents: start at /llms.txt.
Writing
A column for Moneycontrol, on AI and work
What actually stops AI reaching real work — the apprenticeship it quietly removed, the billing model it broke, and the Indian office it was never designed for.
MoneycontrolWhat AI cannot do in an Indian office, and what to do about it
02MoneycontrolIndian IT says AI made it faster. So why is it still billing by the hour?
03MoneycontrolYour first 30 days with AI: A guide for everyone who isn't a techie
04MoneycontrolAI didn't replace engineers. It replaced the apprenticeship
Selected work
What I built, and what it cost
AI on a fashion platform that already has stores
XY Retail · 2026 —US$23Mmonthly disbursals, from a standing startA lending business inside a media company
Moneycontrol / Network18 · 2024–202520M → 80Mmonthly users, no maintenance windowMoving a national news platform to Google Cloud
Moneycontrol · 2024–202575%outbreak accuracy, 400+ storesPredicting disease from twenty years of pharmacy data
Wellness Forever · 2022–2024
If you want to talk, write.
Work, a room to teach, or a piece you want to argue with.