This document is oriented at users who want a deeper understanding of the Kubernetes API structure, and developers wanting to extend the Kubernetes API. An introduction to using resources with kubectl can be found in the object management overview.

Table of Contents

• Types (Kinds)
  • Resources
  • Objects
    • Metadata
    • Spec and Status
      • Typical status properties
    • References to related objects
    • Lists of named subobjects preferred over maps
    • Primitive types
    • Constants
    • Unions
  • Lists and Simple kinds
• Differing Representations
• Verbs on Resources
  • PATCH operations
• Short-names and Categories
  • Short-names
  • Categories
• Idempotency
• Optional vs. Required
• Defaulting
  • Static Defaults
  • Admission Controlled Defaults
  • Controller-Assigned Defaults (aka Late Initialization)
  • What May Be Defaulted
  • Considerations For PUT Operations
• Concurrency Control and Consistency
• Serialization Format
• Units
• Selecting Fields
• Object references
  • Naming of the reference field
  • Referencing resources with multiple versions
  • Handling of resources that do not exist
  • Validation of fields
  • Do not modify the referred object
  • Minimize copying or printing values to the referrer object
  • Object References Examples
    • Single resource reference
      • Controller behavior
    • Multiple resource reference
      • Kind vs. Resource
      • Controller behavior
    • Generic object reference
      • Controller behavior
    • Field reference
      • Controller behavior
• HTTP Status codes
  • Success codes
  • Error codes
• Response Status Kind
• Events
• Naming conventions
  • Namespace Names
• Label, selector, and annotation conventions
• WebSockets and SPDY
• Validation
• Automatic Resource Allocation And Deallocation
• Representing Allocated Values
  • When to use a spec field
  • When to use a status field
    • Sequencing operations
  • When to use a different type

The conventions of the Kubernetes API (and related APIs in the ecosystem) are intended to ease client development and ensure that configuration mechanisms can be implemented that work across a diverse set of use cases consistently.

The general style of the Kubernetes API is RESTful - clients create, update, delete, or retrieve a description of an object via the standard HTTP verbs (POST, PUT, DELETE, and GET) - and those APIs preferentially accept and return JSON. Kubernetes also exposes additional endpoints for non-standard verbs and allows alternative content types. All of the JSON accepted and returned by the server has a schema, identified by the "kind" and "apiVersion" fields. Where relevant HTTP header fields exist, they should mirror the content of JSON fields, but the information should not be represented only in the HTTP header.

The following terms are defined:

• Kind the name of a particular object schema (e.g. the "Cat" and "Dog" kinds would have different attributes and properties)
• Resource a representation of a system entity, sent or retrieved as JSON via HTTP to the server. Resources are exposed via:
  • Collections - a list of resources of the same type, which may be queryable
  • Elements - an individual resource, addressable via a URL
• API Group a set of resources that are exposed together, along with the version exposed in the "apiVersion" field as "GROUP/VERSION", e.g. "policy.k8s.io/v1".

Each resource typically accepts and returns data of a single kind. A kind may be accepted or returned by multiple resources that reflect specific use cases. For instance, the kind "Pod" is exposed as a "pods" resource that allows end users to create, update, and delete pods, while a separate "pod status" resource (that acts on "Pod" kind) allows automated processes to update a subset of the fields in that resource.

Resources are bound together in API groups - each group may have one or more versions that evolve independent of other API groups, and each version within the group has one or more resources. Group names are typically in domain name form - the Kubernetes project reserves use of the empty group, all single word names ("extensions", "apps"), and any group name ending in "*.k8s.io" for its sole use. When choosing a group name, we recommend selecting a subdomain your group or organization owns, such as "widget.mycompany.com".

Version strings should match DNS_LABEL format.

Resource collections should be all lowercase and plural, whereas kinds are CamelCase and singular. Group names must be lower case and be valid DNS subdomains.

Kinds are grouped into three categories:

1. Objects represent a persistent entity in the system.

   Creating an API object is a record of intent - once created, the system will work to ensure that resource exists. All API objects have common metadata.

   An object may have multiple resources that clients can use to perform specific actions that create, update, delete, or get.

   Examples: Pod, ReplicationController, Service, Namespace, Node.

2. Lists are collections of resources of one (usually) or more (occasionally) kinds.

   The name of a list kind must end with "List". Lists have a limited set of common metadata. All lists use the required "items" field to contain the array of objects they return. Any kind that has the "items" field must be a list kind.

   Most objects defined in the system should have an endpoint that returns the full set of resources, as well as zero or more endpoints that return subsets of the full list. Some objects may be singletons (the current user, the system defaults) and may not have lists.

   In addition, all lists that return objects with labels should support label filtering (see the labels documentation), and most lists should support filtering by fields (see the fields documentation).

   Examples: PodList, ServiceList, NodeList.

Note thatkubectl and other tools sometimes output collections of resources as kind: List. Keep in mind that kind: List is not part of the Kubernetes API; it is exposing an implementation detail from client-side code in those tools, used to handle groups of mixed resources.

3. Simple kinds are used for specific actions on objects and for non-persistent entities.

   Given their limited scope, they have the same set of limited common metadata as lists.

   For instance, the "Status" kind is returned when errors occur and is not persisted in the system.

   Many simple resources are "subresources", which are rooted at API paths of specific resources. When resources wish to expose alternative actions or views that are closely coupled to a single resource, they should do so using new sub-resources. Common subresources include:

   • /binding: Used to bind a resource representing a user request (e.g., Pod, PersistentVolumeClaim) to a cluster infrastructure resource (e.g., Node, PersistentVolume).
   • /status: Used to write just the status portion of a resource. For example, the /pods endpoint only allows updates to metadata and spec, since those reflect end-user intent. An automated process should be able to modify status for users to see by sending an updated Pod kind to the server to the "/pods/<name>/status" endpoint - the alternate endpoint allows different rules to be applied to the update, and access to be appropriately restricted.
   • /scale: Used to read and write the count of a resource in a manner that is independent of the specific resource schema.

   Two additional subresources, proxy and portforward, provide access to cluster resources as described in accessing the cluster.

The standard REST verbs (defined below) MUST return singular JSON objects. Some API endpoints may deviate from the strict REST pattern and return resources that are not singular JSON objects, such as streams of JSON objects or unstructured text log data.

A common set of "meta" API objects are used across all API groups and are thus considered part of the API group named meta.k8s.io. These types may evolve independent of the API group that uses them and API servers may allow them to be addressed in their generic form. Examples are ListOptions, DeleteOptions, List, Status, WatchEvent, and Scale. For historical reasons these types are part of each existing API group. Generic tools like quota, garbage collection, autoscalers, and generic clients like kubectl leverage these types to define consistent behavior across different resource types, like the interfaces in programming languages.

The term "kind" is reserved for these "top-level" API types. The term "type" should be used for distinguishing sub-categories within objects or subobjects.

All JSON objects returned by an API MUST have the following fields:

• kind: a string that identifies the schema this object should have
• apiVersion: a string that identifies the version of the schema the object should have

These fields are required for proper decoding of the object. They may be populated by the server by default from the specified URL path, but the client likely needs to know the values in order to construct the URL path.

Every object kind MUST have the following metadata in a nested object field called "metadata":

• namespace: a namespace is a DNS compatible label that objects are subdivided into. The default namespace is 'default'. See the namespace docs for more.
• name: a string that uniquely identifies this object within the current namespace (see the identifiers docs). This value is used in the path when retrieving an individual object.
• uid: a unique in time and space value (typically an RFC 4122 generated identifier, see the identifiers docs) used to distinguish between objects with the same name that have been deleted and recreated

Every object SHOULD have the following metadata in a nested object field called "metadata":

• resourceVersion: a string that identifies the internal version of this object that can be used by clients to determine when objects have changed. This value MUST be treated as opaque by clients and passed unmodified back to the server. Clients should not assume that the resource version has meaning across namespaces, different kinds of resources, or different servers. (See concurrency control, below, for more details.)
• generation: a sequence number representing a specific generation of the desired state. Set by the system and monotonically increasing, per-resource. May be compared, such as for RAW and WAW consistency.
• creationTimestamp: a string representing an RFC 3339 date of the date and time an object was created
• deletionTimestamp: a string representing an RFC 3339 date of the date and time after which this resource will be deleted. This field is set by the server when a graceful deletion is requested by the user, and is not directly settable by a client. The resource will be deleted (no longer visible from resource lists, and not reachable by name) after the time in this field except when the object has a finalizer set. In case the finalizer is set the deletion of the object is postponed at least until the finalizer is removed. Once the deletionTimestamp is set, this value may not be unset or be set further into the future, although it may be shortened or the resource may be deleted prior to this time.
• labels: a map of string keys and values that can be used to organize and categorize objects (see the labels docs)
• annotations: a map of string keys and values that can be used by external tooling to store and retrieve arbitrary metadata about this object (see the annotations docs)

Labels are intended for organizational purposes by end users (select the pods that match this label query). Annotations enable third-party automation and tooling to decorate objects with additional metadata for their own use.

By convention, the Kubernetes API makes a distinction between the specification of the desired state of an object (a nested object field called spec) and the status of the object at the current time (a nested object field called status). The specification is a complete description of the desired state, including configuration settings provided by the user, default values expanded by the system, and properties initialized or otherwise changed after creation by other ecosystem components (e.g., schedulers, auto-scalers), and is persisted in stable storage with the API object. If the specification is deleted, the object will be purged from the system.

The status summarizes the current state of the object in the system, and is usually persisted with the object by automated processes but may be generated on the fly. As a general guideline, fields in status should be the most recent observations of actual state, but they may contain information such as the results of allocations or similar operations which are executed in response to the object's spec. See below for more details.

Types with both spec and status stanzas can (and usually should) have distinct authorization scopes for them. This allows users to be granted full write access to spec and read-only access to status, while relevant controllers are granted read-only access to spec but full write access to status.

When a new version of an object is POSTed or PUT, the spec is updated and available immediately. Over time the system will work to bring the status into line with the spec. The system will drive toward the most recent spec regardless of previous versions of that stanza. For example, if a value is changed from 2 to 5 in one PUT and then back down to 3 in another PUT the system is not required to 'touch base' at 5 before changing the status to 3. In other words, the system's behavior is level-based rather than edge-based. This enables robust behavior in the presence of missed intermediate state changes.

The Kubernetes API also serves as the foundation for the declarative configuration schema for the system. In order to facilitate level-based operation and expression of declarative configuration, fields in the specification should have declarative rather than imperative names and semantics -- they represent the desired state, not actions intended to yield the desired state.

The PUT and POST verbs on objects MUST ignore the status values, to avoid accidentally overwriting the status in read-modify-write scenarios. A /status subresource MUST be provided to enable system components to update statuses of resources they manage.

Otherwise, PUT expects the whole object to be specified. Therefore, if a field is omitted it is assumed that the client wants to clear that field's value. The PUT verb does not accept partial updates. Modification of just part of an object may be achieved by GETting the resource, modifying part of the spec, labels, or annotations, and then PUTting it back. See concurrency control, below, regarding read-modify-write consistency when using this pattern. Some objects may expose alternative resource representations that allow mutation of the status, or performing custom actions on the object.

All objects that represent a physical resource whose state may vary from the user's desired intent SHOULD have a spec and a status. Objects whose state cannot vary from the user's desired intent MAY have only spec, and MAY rename spec to a more appropriate name.

Objects that contain both spec and status should not contain additional top-level fields other than the standard metadata fields.

Some objects which are not persisted in the system - such as SubjectAccessReview and other webhook style calls - may choose to add spec and status to encapsulate a "call and response" pattern. The spec is the request (often a request for information) and the status is the response. For these RPC like objects the only operation may be POST, but having a consistent schema between submission and response reduces the complexity of these clients.

Conditions provide a standard mechanism for higher-level status reporting from a controller. They are an extension mechanism which allows tools and other controllers to collect summary information about resources without needing to understand resource-specific status details. Conditions should complement more detailed information about the observed status of an object written by a controller, rather than replace it. For example, the "Available" condition of a Deployment can be determined by examining readyReplicas, replicas, and other properties of the Deployment. However, the "Available" condition allows other components to avoid duplicating the availability logic in the Deployment controller.

Objects may report multiple conditions, and new types of conditions may be added in the future or by 3rd party controllers. Therefore, conditions are represented using a list/slice of objects, where each condition has a similar structure. This collection should be treated as a map with a key of type.

Conditions are most useful when they follow some consistent conventions:

• Conditions should be added to explicitly convey properties that users and components care about rather than requiring those properties to be inferred from other observations. Once defined, the meaning of a Condition can not be changed arbitrarily - it becomes part of the API, and has the same backwards- and forwards-compatibility concerns of any other part of the API.

• Controllers should apply their conditions to a resource the first time they visit the resource, even if the status is Unknown. This allows other components in the system to know that the condition exists and the controller is making progress on reconciling that resource.

  • Not all controllers will observe the previous advice about reporting "Unknown" or "False" values. For known conditions, the absence of a condition status should be interpreted the same as Unknown, and typically indicates that reconciliation has not yet finished (or that the resource state may not yet be observable).

• For some conditions, True represents normal operation, and for some conditions, False represents normal operation. ("Normal-true" conditions are sometimes said to have "positive polarity", and "normal-false" conditions are said to have "negative polarity".) Without further knowledge of the conditions, it is not possible to compute a generic summary of the conditions on a resource.

• Condition type names should make sense for humans; neither positive nor negative polarity can be recommended as a general rule. A negative condition like "MemoryExhausted" may be easier for humans to understand than "SufficientMemory". Conversely, "Ready" or "Succeeded" may be easier to understand than "Failed", because "Failed=Unknown" or "Failed=False" may cause double-negative confusion.

• Condition type names should describe the current observed state of the resource, rather than describing the current state transitions. This typically means that the name should be an adjective ("Ready", "OutOfDisk") or a past-tense verb ("Succeeded", "Failed") rather than a present-tense verb ("Deploying"). Intermediate states may be indicated by setting the status of the condition to Unknown.

  • For state transitions which take a long period of time (e.g. more than 1 minute), it is reasonable to treat the transition itself as an observed state. In these cases, the Condition (such as "Resizing") itself should not be transient, and should instead be signalled using the True/False/Unknown pattern. This allows other observers to determine the last update from the controller, whether successful or failed. In cases where the state transition is unable to complete and continued reconciliation is not feasible, the Reason and Message should be used to indicate that the transition failed.

• When designing Conditions for a resource, it's helpful to have a common top-level condition which summarizes more detailed conditions. Simple consumers may simply query the top-level condition. Although they are not a consistent standard, the Ready and Succeeded condition types may be used by API designers for long-running and bounded-execution objects, respectively.

Conditions should follow the standard schema included in k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/apis/meta/v1/types.go. It should be included as a top level element in status, similar to

// +listType=map
// +listMapKey=type
// +patchStrategy=merge
// +patchMergeKey=type
// +optional
Conditions []metav1.Condition `json:"conditions,omitempty" patchStrategy:"merge" patchMergeKey:"type" protobuf:"bytes,1,rep,name=conditions"`

The metav1.Conditions includes the following fields

// type of condition in CamelCase or in foo.example.com/CamelCase.
// +required
Type string `json:"type" protobuf:"bytes,1,opt,name=type"`
// status of the condition, one of True, False, Unknown.
// +required
Status ConditionStatus `json:"status" protobuf:"bytes,2,opt,name=status"`
// observedGeneration represents the .metadata.generation that the condition was set based upon.
// For instance, if .metadata.generation is currently 12, but the .status.conditions[x].observedGeneration is 9, the condition is out of date
// with respect to the current state of the instance.
// +optional
ObservedGeneration int64 `json:"observedGeneration,omitempty" protobuf:"varint,3,opt,name=observedGeneration"`
// lastTransitionTime is the last time the condition transitioned from one status to another.
// This should be when the underlying condition changed.  If that is not known, then using the time when the API field changed is acceptable.
// +required
LastTransitionTime Time `json:"lastTransitionTime" protobuf:"bytes,4,opt,name=lastTransitionTime"`
// reason contains a programmatic identifier indicating the reason for the condition's last transition.
// Producers of specific condition types may define expected values and meanings for this field,
// and whether the values are considered a guaranteed API.
// The value should be a CamelCase string.
// This field may not be empty.
// +required
Reason string `json:"reason" protobuf:"bytes,5,opt,name=reason"`
// message is a human readable message indicating details about the transition.
// This may be an empty string.
// +required
Message string `json:"message" protobuf:"bytes,6,opt,name=message"`

Additional fields may be added in the future.

Use of the Reason field is required.

Condition types should be named in PascalCase. Short condition names are preferred (e.g. "Ready" over "MyResourceReady").

Condition status values may be True, False, or Unknown. The absence of a condition should be interpreted the same as Unknown. How controllers handle Unknown depends on the Condition in question.

The thinking around conditions has evolved over time, so there are several non-normative examples in wide use.

In general, condition values may change back and forth, but some condition transitions may be monotonic, depending on the resource and condition type. However, conditions are observations and not, themselves, state machines, nor do we define comprehensive state machines for objects, nor behaviors associated with state transitions. The system is level-based rather than edge-triggered, and should assume an Open World.

An example of an oscillating condition type is Ready, which indicates the object was believed to be fully operational at the time it was last probed. A possible monotonic condition could be Succeeded. A True status for Succeeded would imply completion and that the resource was no longer active. An object that was still active would generally have a Succeeded condition with status Unknown.

Some resources in the v1 API contain fields called phase, and associated message, reason, and other status fields. The pattern of using phase is deprecated. Newer API types should use conditions instead. Phase was essentially a state-machine enumeration field, that contradicted system-design principles and hampered evolution, since adding new enum values breaks backward compatibility. Rather than encouraging clients to infer implicit properties from phases, we prefer to explicitly expose the individual conditions that clients need to monitor. Conditions also have the benefit that it is possible to create some conditions with uniform meaning across all resource types, while still exposing others that are unique to specific resource types. See #7856 for more details and discussion.

In condition types, and everywhere else they appear in the API, Reason is intended to be a one-word, CamelCase representation of the category of cause of the current status, and Message is intended to be a human-readable phrase or sentence, which may contain specific details of the individual occurrence. Reason is intended to be used in concise output, such as one-line kubectl get output, and in summarizing occurrences of causes, whereas Message is intended to be presented to users in detailed status explanations, such as kubectl describe output.

Historical information status (e.g., last transition time, failure counts) is only provided with reasonable effort, and is not guaranteed to not be lost.

Status information that may be large (especially proportional in size to collections of other resources, such as lists of references to other objects -- see below) and/or rapidly changing, such as resource usage, should be put into separate objects, with possibly a reference from the original object. This helps to ensure that GETs and watch remain reasonably efficient for the majority of clients, which may not need that data.

Some resources report the observedGeneration, which is the generation most recently observed by the component responsible for acting upon changes to the desired state of the resource. This can be used, for instance, to ensure that the reported status reflects the most recent desired status.

References to loosely coupled sets of objects, such as pods overseen by a replication controller, are usually best referred to using a label selector. In order to ensure that GETs of individual objects remain bounded in time and space, these sets may be queried via separate API queries, but will not be expanded in the referring object's status.

For references to specific objects, see Object references.

References in the status of the referee to the referrer may be permitted, when the references are one-to-one and do not need to be frequently updated, particularly in an edge-based manner.

Discussed in #2004 and elsewhere. There are no maps of subobjects in any API objects. Instead, the convention is to use a list of subobjects containing name fields. These conventions, and how one can change the semantics of lists, structs and maps are described in more details in the Kubernetes documentation.

For example:

ports:
  - name: www
    containerPort: 80

vs.

ports:
  www:
    containerPort: 80

This rule maintains the invariant that all JSON/YAML keys are fields in API objects. The only exceptions are pure maps in the API (currently, labels, selectors, annotations, data), as opposed to sets of subobjects.

• Look at similar fields in the API (e.g. ports, durations) and follow the conventions of existing fields.
• Do not use enums. Use aliases for string instead (e.g. NodeConditionType).
• All numeric fields should be bounds-checked, both for too-small or negative and for too-large.
• All public integer fields MUST use the Go int32 or Go int64 types, not int (which is ambiguously sized, depending on target platform). Internal types may use int.
• For integer fields, prefer int32 to int64 unless you need to represent values larger than int32. See other guidelines about limitations of int64 and language compatibility.
• Do not use unsigned integers, due to inconsistent support across languages and libraries. Just validate that the integer is non-negative if that's the case.
• All numbers (e.g. int32, int64) are converted to float64 by Javascript and some other languages, so any field which is expected to exceed that either in magnitude or in precision (e.g. integer values > 53 bits) should be serialized and accepted as strings. int64 fields must be bounds-checked to be within the range of -(2^53) < x < (2^53).
• Avoid floating-point values as much as possible, and never use them in spec. Floating-point values cannot be reliably round-tripped (encoded and re-decoded) without changing, and have varying precision and representations across languages and architectures.
• Think twice about bool fields. Many ideas start as boolean but eventually trend towards a small set of mutually exclusive options. Plan for future expansions by describing the policy options explicitly as a string type alias (e.g. TerminationMessagePolicy).

Some fields will have a list of allowed values (enumerations). These values will be strings, and they will be in CamelCase, with an initial uppercase letter. Examples: ClusterFirst, Pending, ClientIP. When an acronym or initialism each letter in the acronym should be uppercase, such as with ClientIP or TCPDelay. When a proper name or the name of a command-line executable is used as a constant the proper name should be represented in consistent casing - examples: systemd, iptables, IPVS, cgroupfs, Docker (as a generic concept), docker (as the command-line executable). If a proper name is used which has mixed capitalization like eBPF that should be preserved in a longer constant such as eBPFDelegation.

All API within Kubernetes must leverage constants in this style, including flags and configuration files. Where inconsistent constants were previously used, new flags should be CamelCase only, and over time old flags should be updated to accept a CamelCase value alongside the inconsistent constant. Example: the Kubelet accepts a --topology-manager-policy flag that has values none, best-effort, restricted, and single-numa-node. This flag should accept None, BestEffort, Restricted, and SingleNUMANode going forward. If new values are added to the flag, both forms should be supported.

Sometimes, at most one of a set of fields can be set. For example, the [volumes] field of a PodSpec has 17 different volume type-specific fields, such as nfs and iscsi. All fields in the set should be Optional.

Sometimes, when a new type is created, the api designer may anticipate that a union will be needed in the future, even if only one field is allowed initially. In this case, be sure to make the field Optional In the validation, you may still return an error if the sole field is unset. Do not set a default value for that field.

Every list or simple kind SHOULD have the following metadata in a nested object field called "metadata":

• resourceVersion: a string that identifies the common version of the objects returned by in a list. This value MUST be treated as opaque by clients and passed unmodified back to the server. A resource version is only valid within a single namespace on a single kind of resource.

Every simple kind returned by the server, and any simple kind sent to the server that must support idempotency or optimistic concurrency should return this value. Since simple resources are often used as input alternate actions that modify objects, the resource version of the simple resource should correspond to the resource version of the object.

An API may represent a single entity in different ways for different clients, or transform an object after certain transitions in the system occur. In these cases, one request object may have two representations available as different resources, or different kinds.

An example is a Service, which represents the intent of the user to group a set of pods with common behavior on common ports. When Kubernetes detects a pod matches the service selector, the IP address and port of the pod are added to an Endpoints resource for that Service. The Endpoints resource exists only if the Service exists, but exposes only the IPs and ports of the selected pods. The full service is represented by two distinct resources - under the original Service resource the user created, as well as in the Endpoints resource.

As another example, a "pod status" resource may accept a PUT with the "pod" kind, with different rules about what fields may be changed.

Future versions of Kubernetes may allow alternative encodings of objects beyond JSON.

API resources should use the traditional REST pattern:

• GET /<resourceNamePlural> - Retrieve a list of type <resourceName>, e.g. GET /pods returns a list of Pods.
• POST /<resourceNamePlural> - Create a new resource from the JSON object provided by the client.
• GET /<resourceNamePlural>/<name> - Retrieves a single resource with the given name, e.g. GET /pods/first returns a Pod named 'first'. Should be constant time, and the resource should be bounded in size.
• DELETE /<resourceNamePlural>/<name> - Delete the single resource with the given name. DeleteOptions may specify gracePeriodSeconds, the optional duration in seconds before the object should be deleted. Individual kinds may declare fields which provide a default grace period, and different kinds may have differing kind-wide default grace periods. A user provided grace period overrides a default grace period, including the zero grace period ("now").
• DELETE /<resourceNamePlural> - Deletes a list of type <resourceName>, e.g. DELETE /pods a list of Pods.
• PUT /<resourceNamePlural>/<name> - Update or create the resource with the given name with the JSON object provided by the client. Whether a resource can be created with a PUT request depends on the particular resource's storage strategy configuration, specifically the AllowCreateOnUpdate() return value. Most built-in types do not allow this.
• PATCH /<resourceNamePlural>/<name> - Selectively modify the specified fields of the resource. See more information below.
• GET /<resourceNamePlural>?watch=true - Receive a stream of JSON objects corresponding to changes made to any resource of the given kind over time.

The API supports three different PATCH operations, determined by their corresponding Content-Type header:

• JSON Patch, Content-Type: application/json-patch+json
  • As defined in RFC6902, a JSON Patch is a sequence of operations that are executed on the resource, e.g. {"op": "add", "path": "/a/b/c", "value": [ "foo", "bar" ]}. For more details on how to use JSON Patch, see the RFC.
• Merge Patch, Content-Type: application/merge-patch+json
  • As defined in RFC7386, a Merge Patch is essentially a partial representation of the resource. The submitted JSON is "merged" with the current resource to create a new one, then the new one is saved. For more details on how to use Merge Patch, see the RFC.
• Strategic Merge Patch, Content-Type: application/strategic-merge-patch+json
  • Strategic Merge Patch is a custom implementation of Merge Patch. For a detailed explanation of how it works and why it needed to be introduced, see here.

Resource implementers can optionally include "short names" and categories in the discovery information published for a resource type, which clients may use as hints when resolving ambiguous user invocations.

For compiled-in resources, these are controlled by the REST handler ShortNames() []string and Categories() []string implementations.

For custom resources, these are controlled by the .spec.names.shortNames and .spec.names.categories fields in the CustomResourceDefinition.

Note: Due to unpredictable behavior when short names collide (with each other or with resource types), do not add new short names to built-in resources unless specifically allowed by API reviewers. See issues #117742 and #108573.

"Short names" listed in discovery may be used by clients as hints to resolve ambiguous user invocations to a single resource.

Examples of built-in short names include:

• ds -> apps/v* daemonsets
• sts -> apps/v* statefulsets
• hpa -> autoscaling/v* horizontalpodautoscalers

For example, with only built-in API types served, kubectl get sts is equivalent to kubectl get statefulsets.v1.apps.

Short-name matches may be given lower priority than an exact match of a resource type, so use of short names increases potential for inconsistent behavior in clusters with custom resources installed, if those custom resource types overlap with short names.

Continuing the above example, if a custom resource with .spec.names.plural set to sts was installed in a cluster, kubectl get sts would switch to retrieving instances of the custom resource instead.

Note: Due to inconsistent behavior when categories collide with resource types, and difficulties knowing when it is safe to add new resources to an existing category, do not add new categories to built-in resources unless specifically allowed by API reviewers. See issues #7547 #42885, and considerations for adding to the "all" category for examples of the difficulties encountered.

Categories listed in discovery may be used by clients as hints to resolve user invocations to multiple resources.

Examples of built-in categories and the resources they map to include:

• api-extensions
  • apiregistration.k8s.io/v* apiservices
  • admissionregistration.k8s.io/v* mutatingwebhookconfigurations
  • admissionregistration.k8s.io/v* validatingwebhookconfigurations
  • admissionregistration.k8s.io/v* validatingadmissionpolicies
  • admissionregistration.k8s.io/v* validatingadmissionpolicybindings
  • apiextensions.k8s.io/v* customresourcedefinitions
• all
  • v1 pods
  • v1 replicationcontrollers
  • v1 services
  • apps/v* daemonsets
  • apps/v* deployments
  • apps/v* replicasets
  • apps/v* statefulsets
  • autoscaling/v* horizontalpodautoscalers
  • batch/v* cronjobs
  • batch/v* jobs

With the above categories, and only built-in API types served, kubectl get all would be equivalent to kubectl get pods.v1.,replicationcontrollers.v1.,services.v1.,daemonsets.v1.apps,deployments.v1.apps,replicasets.v1.apps,statefulsets.v1.apps,horizontalpodautoscalers.v2.autoscaling,cronjobs.v1.batch,jobs.v1.batch,.

All compatible Kubernetes APIs MUST support "name idempotency" and respond with an HTTP status code 409 when a request is made to POST an object that has the same name as an existing object in the system. See the identifiers docs for details.

Names generated by the system may be requested using metadata.generateName. GenerateName indicates that the name should be made unique by the server prior to persisting it. A non-empty value for the field indicates the server should attempt to make the name unique (and the name returned to the client will be different than the name passed). The value of this field will be combined with a random suffix on the server if the Name field has not been provided. The provided value must be valid within the rules for Name, and may be truncated by the length of the suffix. If this field is specified, and Name is not present, the server will return a 409 with Reason AlreadyExists if the generated name exists, and the client should retry (after waiting at least the amount of time indicated in the Retry-After header, if it is present).

Fields must be either optional or required.

Optional fields have the following properties:

• They have the +optional comment tag in Go.
• They are a pointer type in the Go definition (e.g. AwesomeFlag *SomeFlag) or have a built-in nil value (e.g. maps and slices).
• The API server should allow POSTing and PUTing a resource with this field unset.

In most cases, optional fields should also have the omitempty struct tag (the omitempty option specifies that the field should be omitted from the json encoding if the field has an empty value). However, If you want to have different logic for an optional field which is not provided vs. provided with empty values, do not use omitempty (e.g. kubernetes/kubernetes#34641).

Note that for backward compatibility, any field that has the omitempty struct tag will be considered to be optional, but this may change in the future and having the +optional comment tag is highly recommended.

Required fields have the opposite properties, namely:

• They do not have an +optional comment tag.
• They do not have an omitempty struct tag.
• They are not a pointer type in the Go definition (e.g. AnotherFlag SomeFlag).
• The API server should not allow POSTing or PUTing a resource with this field unset.

Using the +optional or the omitempty tag causes OpenAPI documentation to reflect that the field is optional.

Using a pointer allows distinguishing unset from the zero value for that type. There are some cases where, in principle, a pointer is not needed for an optional field since the zero value is forbidden, and thus implies unset. There are examples of this in the codebase. However:

• it can be difficult for implementors to anticipate all cases where an empty value might need to be distinguished from a zero value
• structs are not omitted from encoder output even where omitempty is specified, which is messy;
• having a pointer consistently imply optional is clearer for users of the Go language client, and any other clients that use corresponding types

Therefore, we ask that pointers always be used with optional fields that do not have a built-in nil value.

In general we want default values to be explicitly represented in our APIs, rather than asserting that "unspecified fields get the default behavior". This is important so that:

• default values can evolve and change in newer API versions
• the stored configuration depicts the full desired state, making it easier for the system to determine how to achieve the state, and for the user to know what to anticipate

There are 3 distinct ways that default values can be applied when creating or updating (including patch and apply) a resource:

1. static: based on the requested API version and possibly other fields in the resource, fields can be assigned values during the API call
2. admission control: based on the configured admission controllers and possibly other state in or out of the cluster, fields can be assigned values during the API call
3. controllers: arbitrary changes (within the bounds of what is allowed) can be made to a resource after the API call has completed

Some care is required when deciding which mechanism to use and managing the semantics.

Static default values are specific to each API version. The default field values applied when creating an object with the "v1" API may be different than the values applied when using the "v2" API. In most cases, these values are defined as literal values by the API version (e.g. "if this field is not specified it defaults to 0").

In some cases, these values may be conditional on or deterministically derived from other fields (e.g. "if otherField is X then this field defaults to 0" or "this field defaults to the value of otherField"). Note that such derived defaults present a hazard in the face of updates - if the "other" field changes, the derived field may have to change, too. The static defaulting logic is unaware of updates and has no concept of "previous value", which means this inter-field relationship becomes the user's problem - they must update both the field they care about and the "other" field.

In very rare cases, these values may be allocated from some pool or determined by some other method (e.g. Service's IP and IP-family related fields need to consider other configuration settings).

These values are applied synchronously by the API server when decoding versioned data. For CREATE and UPDATE operations this is fairly straight-forward - when the API server receives a (versioned) request, the default values are immediately applied before any further processing. When the API call completes, all static defaults will have been set and stored. Subsequent GETs of the resource will include the default values explicitly. However, static defaults also apply when an object is read from storage (i.e. GET operations). This means that when someone GETs an "older" stored object, any fields which have been added to the API since that object was stored will be defaulted and returned according to the API version that is stored.

Static defaults are the best choice for values which are logically required, but which have a value that works well for most users. Static defaulting must not consider any state except the object being operated upon (and the complexity of Service API stands as an example of why).

Default values can be specified on a field using the +default= tag. Primitives will have their values directly assigned while structs will go through the JSON unmarshalling process. Fields that do not have an omitempty json tag will default to the zero value of their corresponding type if no default is assigned.

Refer to defaulting docs for more information.

In some cases, it is useful to set a default value which is not derived from the object in question. For example, when creating a PersistentVolumeClaim, the storage class must be specified. For many users, the best answer is "whatever the cluster admin has decided for the default". StorageClass is a different API than PersistentVolumeClaim, and which one is denoted as the default may change at any time. Thus this is not eligible for static defaulting.

Instead, we can provide a built-in admission controller or a MutatingWebhookConfiguration. Unlike static defaults, these may consider external state (such as annotations on StorageClass objects) when deciding default values, and must handle things like race conditions (e.g. a StorageClass is designated the default, but the admission controller has not yet seen that update). These admission controllers are strictly optional and can be disabled. As such, fields which are initialized this way must be strictly optional.

Like static defaults, these are run synchronously to the API operation in question, and when the API call completes, all static defaults will have been set. Subsequent GETs of the resource will include the default values explicitly.

Late initialization is when resource fields are set by a system controller after an object is created/updated (asynchronously). For example, the scheduler sets the pod.spec.nodeName field after the pod is created. It's a stretch to call this "defaulting" but since it is so common and useful, it is included here.

Like admission controlled defaults, these controllers may consider external state when deciding what values to set, must handle race conditions, and can be disabled. Fields which are initialized this way must be strictly optional (meaning observers will see the object without these fields set, and that is allowable and semantically correct).

Like all controllers, care must be taken to not clobber unrelated fields or values (e.g. in an array). Using one of the patch or apply mechanisms is recommended to facilitate composition and concurrency of controllers.

All forms of defaulting should only make the following types of modifications:

• Setting previously unset fields
• Adding keys to maps
• Adding values to arrays which have mergeable semantics (+listType=map tag or patchStrategy:"merge" attribute in the type definition)

In particular we never want to change or override a value that was provided by the user. If they requested something invalid, they should get an error.

These rules ensure that:

1. a user (with sufficient privilege) can override any system-default behaviors by explicitly setting the fields that would otherwise have been defaulted
2. updates from users can be merged with default values

Once an object has been created and defaults have been applied, it's very common for updates to happen over time. Kubernetes offers several ways of updating an object which preserve existing values in fields other than those being updated (e.g. strategic merge patch and server-side apply). There is, however, a less obvious way of updating objects which can have bad interactions with default values - PUT (aka kubectl replace).

The goal is that, for a given input (e.g. YAML file), PUT on an existing object should produce the same result as if you used that input to create the object. Calling PUT a second time with the same input should be idempotent and should not change the resource. Even a read-modify-write cycle is not a perfect solution in the face of version skew.

When an object is updated with a PUT, the API server will see the "old" object with previously assigned defaults and the "new" object with newly assigned defaults. For static defaults this can be a problem if the CREATE and the PUT used different API versions. For example, "v1" of an API might default a field to false, while "v2" defaults it to true. If an object was created via API v1 (field = false) and then replaced via API v2, the field will attempt to change to true. This can also be a problem when the values are allocated or derived from a source outside of the object in question (e.g. Service IPs).

For some APIs this is acceptable and actionable. For others, this may be disallowed by validation. In the latter case, the user will get an error about an attempt to change a field which is not even present in their YAML. This is especially dangerous when adding new fields - an older client may not even know about the existence of the field, making even a read-modify-write cycle fail. While it is "correct" (in the sense that it is really what they asked for with PUT), it is not helpful and is a bad UX.

When adding a field with a static or admission controlled default, this must be considered. If the field is immutable after creation, consider adding logic to manually "patch" the value from the "old" object into the "new" one when it has been "unset", rather than returning an error or allocating a different value (e.g. Service IPs). This will very often be what the user meant, even if it is not what they said. This may require setting the default in a different way (e.g. in the registry code which understands updates instead of in the versioned defaulting code which does not). Be careful to detect and report legitimate errors where the "new" value is specified but is different from the "old" value.

For controller-defaulted fields, the situation is even more unpleasant. Controllers do not have an opportunity to "patch" the value before the API operation is committed. If the "unset" value is allowed then it will be saved, and any watch clients will be notified. If the "unset" value is not allowed or mutations are otherwise disallowed, the user will get an error, and there's simply nothing we can do about it.

Kubernetes leverages the concept of resource versions to achieve optimistic concurrency. All Kubernetes resources have a "resourceVersion" field as part of their metadata. This resourceVersion is a string that identifies the internal version of an object that can be used by clients to determine when objects have changed. When a record is about to be updated, its version is checked against a pre-saved value, and if it doesn't match, the update fails with a StatusConflict (HTTP status code 409).

The resourceVersion is changed by the server every time an object is modified. If resourceVersion is included with the PUT operation the system will verify that there have not been other successful mutations to the resource during a read/modify/write cycle, by verifying that the current value of resourceVersion matches the specified value.

The resourceVersion is currently backed by etcd's mod_revision. However, it's important to note that the application should not rely on the implementation details of the versioning system maintained by Kubernetes. We may change the implementation of resourceVersion in the future, such as to change it to a timestamp or per-object counter.

The only way for a client to know the expected value of resourceVersion is to have received it from the server in response to a prior operation, typically a GET. This value MUST be treated as opaque by clients and passed unmodified back to the server. Clients should not assume that the resource version has meaning across namespaces, different kinds of resources, or different servers. Currently, the value of resourceVersion is set to match etcd's sequencer. You could think of it as a logical clock the API server can use to order requests. However, we expect the implementation of resourceVersion to change in the future, such as in the case we shard the state by kind and/or namespace, or port to another storage system.

In the case of a conflict, the correct client action at this point is to GET the resource again, apply the changes afresh, and try submitting again. This mechanism can be used to prevent races like the following:

Client #1                                  Client #2
GET Foo                                    GET Foo
Set Foo.Bar = "one"                        Set Foo.Baz = "two"
PUT Foo                                    PUT Foo

When these sequences occur in parallel, either the change to Foo.Bar or the change to Foo.Baz can be lost.

On the other hand, when specifying the resourceVersion, one of the PUTs will fail, since whichever write succeeds changes the resourceVersion for Foo.

resourceVersion may be used as a precondition for other operations (e.g., GET, DELETE) in the future, such as for read-after-write consistency in the presence of caching.

"Watch" operations specify resourceVersion using a query parameter. It is used to specify the point at which to begin watching the specified resources. This may be used to ensure that no mutations are missed between a GET of a resource (or list of resources) and a subsequent Watch, even if the current version of the resource is more recent. This is currently the main reason that list operations (GET on a collection) return resourceVersion.

APIs may return alternative representations of any resource in response to an Accept header or under alternative endpoints, but the default serialization for input and output of API responses MUST be JSON.

A protobuf encoding is also accepted for built-in resources. As proto is not self-describing, there is an envelope wrapper which describes the type of the contents.

All dates should be serialized as RFC3339 strings.

Units must either be explicit in the field name (e.g., timeoutSeconds), or must be specified as part of the value (e.g., resource.Quantity). Which approach is preferred is TBD, though currently we use the fooSeconds convention for durations.

Duration fields must be represented as integer fields with units being part of the field name (e.g. leaseDurationSeconds). We don't use Duration in the API since that would require clients to implement go-compatible parsing.

Some APIs may need to identify which field in a JSON object is invalid, or to reference a value to extract from a separate resource. The current recommendation is to use standard JavaScript syntax for accessing that field, assuming the JSON object was transformed into a JavaScript object, without the leading dot, such as metadata.name.

Examples:

• Find the field "current" in the object "state" in the second item in the array "fields": fields[1].state.current

Object references on a namespaced type should usually refer only to objects in the same namespace. Because namespaces are a security boundary, cross namespace references can have unexpected impacts, including:

1. leaking information about one namespace into another namespace. It's natural to place status messages or even bits of content about the referenced object in the original. This is a problem across namespaces.
2. potential invasions into other namespaces. Often references give access to a piece of referred information, so being able to express "give me that one over there" is dangerous across namespaces without additional work for permission checks or opt-in's from both involved namespaces.
3. referential integrity problems that one party cannot solve. Referencing namespace/B from namespace/A doesn't imply the power to control the other namespace. This means that you can refer to a thing you cannot create or update.
4. unclear semantics on deletion. If a namespaced resource is referenced by other namespaces, should a delete of the referenced resource result in removal or should the referenced resource be force to remain.
5. unclear semantics on creation. If a referenced resource is created after its reference, there is no way to know if it is the one that is expected or if it is a different one created with the same name.

Built-in types and ownerReferences do not support cross namespaces references. If a non-built-in types chooses to have cross-namespace references the semantics of the edge cases above should be clearly described and the permissions issues should be resolved. This could be done with a double opt-in (an opt-in from both the referrer and the refer-ee) or with secondary permissions checks performed in admission.

The name of the reference field should be of the format "{field}Ref", with "Ref" always included in the suffix.

The "{field}" component should be named to indicate the purpose of the reference. For example, "targetRef" in an endpoint indicates that the object reference specifies the target.

It is okay to have the "{field}" component indicate the resource type. For example, "secretRef" when referencing a secret. However, this comes with the risk of the field being a misnomer in the case that the field is expanded to reference more than one type.

In the case of a list of object references, the field should be of the format "{field}Refs", with the same guidance as the singular case above.

Most resources will have multiple versions. For example, core resources will undergo version changes as it transitions from alpha to GA.

Controllers should assume that a version of a resource may change, and include appropriate error handling.

There are multiple scenarios where a desired resource may not exist. Examples include:

• the desired version of the resource does not exist.
• race condition in the bootstrapping of a cluster resulting a resource not yet added.
• user error.

Controllers should be authored with the assumption that the referenced resource may not exist, and include error handling to make the issue clear to the user.

Many of the values used in an object reference are used as part of the API path. For example, the object name is used in the path to identify the object. Unsanitized, these values can be used to attempt to retrieve other resources, such as by using values with semantic meanings such as .. or /.

Have the controller validate fields before using them as path segments in an API request, and emit an event to tell the user that the validation has failed.

See Object Names and IDs for more information on legal object names.

To minimize potential privilege escalation vectors, do not modify the object that is being referred to, or limit modification to objects in the same namespace and constrain the type of modification allowed (for example, the HorizontalPodAutoscaler controller only writes to the /scale subresource).

As the permissions of the controller can differ from the permissions of the author of the object the controller is managing, it is possible that the author of the object may not have permissions to view the referred object. As a result, the copying of any values about the referred object to the referrer object can be considered permissions escalations, enabling a user to read values that they would not have access to previously.

The same scenario applies to writing information about the referred object to events.

In general, do not write or print information retrieved from the referred object to the spec, other objects, or logs.

When it is necessary, consider whether these values would be ones that the author of the referrer object would have access to via other means (e.g. already required to correctly populate the object reference).

The following sections illustrate recommended schemas for various object references scenarios.

The schemas outlined below are designed to enable purely additive fields as the types of referencable objects expand, and therefore are backwards compatible.

For example, it is possible to go from a single resource type to multiple resource types without a breaking change in the schema.

A single kind object reference is straightforward in that the controller can hard-code most qualifiers needed to identify the object. As such as the only value needed to be provided is the name (and namespace, although cross-namespace references are discouraged):

# for a single resource, the suffix should be Ref, with the field name
# providing an indication as to the resource type referenced.
secretRef:
    name: foo
    # namespace would generally not be needed and is discouraged,
    # as explained above.
    namespace: foo-namespace

This schema should only be used when the intention is to always have the reference only be to a single resource. If extending to multiple resource types is possible, use the multiple resource reference.

The operator is expected to know the version, group, and resource name of the object it needs to retrieve the value from, and can use the discovery client or construct the API path directly.

Multi-kind object references are used when there is a bounded set of valid resource types that a reference can point to.

As with a single-kind object reference, the operator can supply missing fields, provided that the fields that are present are sufficient to uniquely identify the object resource type among the set of supported types.

# guidance for the field name is the same as a single resource.
fooRef:
    group: sns.services.k8s.aws
    resource: topics
    name: foo
    namespace: foo-namespace

Although not always necessary to help a controller identify a resource type, “group” is included to avoid ambiguity when the resource exists in multiple groups. It also provides clarity to end users and enables copy-pasting of a reference without the referenced type changing due to a different controller handling the reference.

A common point of confusion in object references is whether to construct references with a "kind" or "resource" field. Historically most object references in Kubernetes have used "kind". This is not as precise as "resource". Although each combination of "group" and "resource" must be unique within Kubernetes, the same is not always true for "group" and "kind". It is possible for multiple resources to make use of the same "kind".

Typically all objects in Kubernetes have a canonical primary resource - such as “pods” representing the way to create and delete resources of the “Pod” schema. While it is possible a resource schema cannot be directly created, such as a “Scale” object which is only used within the “scale” subresource of a number of workloads, most object references address the primary resource via its schema. In the context of object references, "kind" refers to the schema, not the resource.

If implementations of an object reference will always have a clear way to map kinds to resources, it is acceptable to use "kind" in the object reference. In general, this requires implementations to have a predefined mapping between kinds and resources (this is the case for built-in references which use "kind"). Relying on dynamic kind to resource mapping is not safe. Even if a "kind" only dynamically maps to a single resource initially, it's possible for another resource to be mounted that refers to the same "kind", potentially breaking any dynamic resource mapping.

If an object reference may be used to reference resources of arbitrary types and the mapping between kind and resource could be ambiguous, "resource" should be used in the object reference.

The Ingress API provides a good example of where "kind" is acceptable for an object reference. The API supports a backend reference as an extension point. Implementations can use this to support forwarding traffic to custom targets such as a storage bucket. Importantly, the supported target types are clearly defined by each implementation of the API and there is no ambiguity for which resource a kind maps to. This is because each Ingress implementation has a hard-coded mapping of kind to resource.

The object reference above would look like this if it were using "kind" instead of "resource":

fooRef:
    group: sns.services.k8s.aws
    kind: Topic
    name: foo
    namespace: foo-namespace

The operator can store a map of (group,resource) to the version of that resource it desires. From there, it can construct the full path to the resource, and retrieve the object.

It is also possible to have the controller choose a version that it finds via the discovery client. However, as schemas can vary across different versions of a resource, the controller must also handle these differences.

A generic object reference is used when the desire is to provide a pointer to some object to simplify discovery for the user. For example, this could be used to reference a target object for a core.v1.Event that occurred.

With a generic object reference, it is not possible to extract any information about the referenced object aside from what is standard (e.g. ObjectMeta). Since any standard fields exist in any version of a resource, it is possible to not include version in this case:

fooObjectRef:
    group: operator.openshift.io
    resource: openshiftapiservers
    name: cluster
    # namespace is unset if the resource is cluster-scoped, or lives in the
    # same namespace as the referrer.

The operator would be expected to find the resource via the discovery client (as the version is not supplied). As any retrievable field would be common to all objects, any version of the resource should do.

A field reference is used when the desire is to extract a value from a specific field in a referenced object.

Field references differ from other reference types, as the operator has no knowledge of the object prior to the reference. Since the schema of an object can differ for different versions of a resource, this means that a “version” is required for this type of reference.

fooFieldRef:
   version: v1 # version of the resource
   # group is elided in the ConfigMap example, since it has a blank group in the OpenAPI spec.
   resource: configmaps
   fieldPath: data.foo

The fieldPath should point to a single value, and use the recommended field selector notation to denote the field path.

In this scenario, the user will supply all of the required path elements: group, version, resource, name, and possibly namespace. As such, the controller can construct the API prefix and query it without the use of the discovery client:

/apis/{group}/{version}/{resource}/

The server will respond with HTTP status codes that match the HTTP spec. See the section below for a breakdown of the types of status codes the server will send.

The following HTTP status codes may be returned by the API.

• 200 StatusOK
  • Indicates that the request completed successfully.
• 201 StatusCreated
  • Indicates that the request to create kind completed successfully.
• 204 StatusNoContent
  • Indicates that the request completed successfully, and the response contains no body.
  • Returned in response to HTTP OPTIONS requests.

• 307 StatusTemporaryRedirect

  • Indicates that the address for the requested resource has changed.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Follow the redirect.

• 400 StatusBadRequest

  • Indicates the requested is invalid.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Do not retry. Fix the request.

• 401 StatusUnauthorized

  • Indicates that the server can be reached and understood the request, but refuses to take any further action, because the client must provide authorization. If the client has provided authorization, the server is indicating the provided authorization is unsuitable or invalid.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • If the user has not supplied authorization information, prompt them for the appropriate credentials. If the user has supplied authorization information, inform them their credentials were rejected and optionally prompt them again.

• 403 StatusForbidden

  • Indicates that the server can be reached and understood the request, but refuses to take any further action, because it is configured to deny access for some reason to the requested resource by the client.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Do not retry. Fix the request.

• 404 StatusNotFound

  • Indicates that the requested resource does not exist.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Do not retry. Fix the request.

• 405 StatusMethodNotAllowed

  • Indicates that the action the client attempted to perform on the resource was not supported by the code.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Do not retry. Fix the request.

• 409 StatusConflict

  • Indicates that either the resource the client attempted to create already exists or the requested update operation cannot be completed due to a conflict.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • If creating a new resource:
      • Either change the identifier and try again, or GET and compare the fields in the pre-existing object and issue a PUT/update to modify the existing object.
    • If updating an existing resource:
      • See Conflict from the status response section below on how to retrieve more information about the nature of the conflict.
      • GET and compare the fields in the pre-existing object, merge changes (if still valid according to preconditions), and retry with the updated request (including ResourceVersion).

• 410 StatusGone

  • Indicates that the item is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Do not retry. Fix the request.

• 422 StatusUnprocessableEntity

  • Indicates that the requested create or update operation cannot be completed due to invalid data provided as part of the request.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Do not retry. Fix the request.

• 429 StatusTooManyRequests

  • Indicates that either the client rate limit has been exceeded or the server has received more requests than it can process.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Read the Retry-After HTTP header from the response, and wait at least that long before retrying.

• 500 StatusInternalServerError

  • Indicates that the server can be reached and understood the request, but either an unexpected internal error occurred and the outcome of the call is unknown, or the server cannot complete the action in a reasonable time (this may be due to temporary server load or a transient communication issue with another server).
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Retry with exponential backoff.

• 503 StatusServiceUnavailable

  • Indicates that required service is unavailable.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Retry with exponential backoff.

• 504 StatusServerTimeout

  • Indicates that the request could not be completed within the given time. Clients can get this response ONLY when they specified a timeout param in the request.
  • Suggested client recovery behavior:
    • Increase the value of the timeout param and retry with exponential backoff.

Kubernetes will always return the Status kind from any API endpoint when an error occurs. Clients SHOULD handle these types of objects when appropriate.

A Status kind will be returned by the API in two cases:

• When an operation is not successful (i.e. when the server would return a non 2xx HTTP status code).
• When a HTTP DELETE call is successful.

The status object is encoded as JSON and provided as the body of the response. The status object contains fields for humans and machine consumers of the API to get more detailed information for the cause of the failure. The information in the status object supplements, but does not override, the HTTP status code's meaning. When fields in the status object have the same meaning as generally defined HTTP headers and that header is returned with the response, the header should be considered as having higher priority.

Example:

$ curl -v -k -H "Authorization: Bearer WhCDvq4VPpYhrcfmF6ei7V9qlbqTubUc" https://10.240.122.184:443/api/v1/namespaces/default/pods/grafana

> GET /api/v1/namespaces/default/pods/grafana HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.26.0
> Host: 10.240.122.184
> Accept: */*
> Authorization: Bearer WhCDvq4VPpYhrcfmF6ei7V9qlbqTubUc
>

< HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
< Content-Type: application/json
< Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 18:10:42 GMT
< Content-Length: 232
<
{
  "kind": "Status",
  "apiVersion": "v1",
  "metadata": {},
  "status": "Failure",
  "message": "pods \"grafana\" not found",
  "reason": "NotFound",
  "details": {
    "name": "grafana",
    "kind": "pods"
  },
  "code": 404
}

status field contains one of two possible values:

• Success
• Failure

message may contain human-readable description of the error

reason may contain a machine-readable, one-word, CamelCase description of why this operation is in the Failure status. If this value is empty there is no information available. The reason clarifies an HTTP status code but does not override it.

details may contain extended data associated with the reason. Each reason may define its own extended details. This field is optional and the data returned is not guaranteed to conform to any schema except that defined by the reason type.

Possible values for the reason and details fields:

• BadRequest

  • Indicates that the request itself was invalid, because the request doesn't make any sense, for example deleting a read-only object.
  • This is different than status reason Invalid above which indicates that the API call could possibly succeed, but the data was invalid.
  • API calls that return BadRequest can never succeed.
  • Http status code: 400 StatusBadRequest

• Unauthorized

  • Indicates that the server can be reached and understood the request, but refuses to take any further action without the client providing appropriate authorization. If the client has provided authorization, this error indicates the provided credentials are insufficient or invalid.
  • Details (optional):
    • kind string
      • The kind attribute of the unauthorized resource (on some operations may differ from the requested resource).
    • name string
      • The identifier of the unauthorized resource.
  • HTTP status code: 401 StatusUnauthorized

• Forbidden

  • Indicates that the server can be reached and understood the request, but refuses to take any further action, because it is configured to deny access for some reason to the requested resource by the client.
  • Details (optional):
    • kind string
      • The kind attribute of the forbidden resource (on some operations may differ from the requested resource).
    • name string
      • The identifier of the forbidden resource.
  • HTTP status code: 403 StatusForbidden

• NotFound

  • Indicates that one or more resources required for this operation could not be found.
  • Details (optional):
    • kind string
      • The kind attribute of the missing resource (on some operations may differ from the requested resource).
    • name string
      • The identifier of the missing resource.
  • HTTP status code: 404 StatusNotFound

• AlreadyExists

  • Indicates that the resource you are creating already exists.
  • Details (optional):
    • kind string
      • The kind attribute of the conflicting resource.
    • name string
      • The identifier of the conflicting resource.
  • HTTP status code: 409 StatusConflict

• Conflict

  • Indicates that the requested update operation cannot be completed due to a conflict. The client may need to alter the request. Each resource may define custom details that indicate the nature of the conflict.
  • HTTP status code: 409 StatusConflict

• Invalid

  • Indicates that the requested create or update operation cannot be completed due to invalid data provided as part of the request.
  • Details (optional):
    • kind string
      • the kind attribute of the invalid resource
    • name string
      • the identifier of the invalid resource
    • causes
      • One or more StatusCause entries indicating the data in the provided resource that was invalid. The reason, message, and field attributes will be set.
  • HTTP status code: 422 StatusUnprocessableEntity

• Timeout

  • Indicates that the request could not be completed within the given time. Clients may receive this response if the server has decided to rate limit the client, or if the server is overloaded and cannot process the request at this time.
  • Http status code: 429 TooManyRequests
  • The server should set the Retry-After HTTP header and return retryAfterSeconds in the details field of the object. A value of 0 is the default.

• ServerTimeout

  • Indicates that the server can be reached and understood the request, but cannot complete the action in a reasonable time. This maybe due to temporary server load or a transient communication issue with another server.
    • Details (optional):
      • kind string
        • The kind attribute of the resource being acted on.
      • name string
        • The operation that is being attempted.
  • The server should set the Retry-After HTTP header and return retryAfterSeconds in the details field of the object. A value of 0 is the default.
  • Http status code: 504 StatusServerTimeout

• MethodNotAllowed

  • Indicates that the action the client attempted to perform on the resource was not supported by the code.
  • For instance, attempting to delete a resource that can only be created.
  • API calls that return MethodNotAllowed can never succeed.
  • Http status code: 405 StatusMethodNotAllowed

• InternalError

  • Indicates that an internal error occurred, it is unexpected and the outcome of the call is unknown.
  • Details (optional):
    • causes
      • The original error.
  • Http status code: 500 StatusInternalServerError code may contain the suggested HTTP return code for this status.

Events are complementary to status information, since they can provide some historical information about status and occurrences in addition to current or previous status. Generate events for situations users or administrators should be alerted about.

Choose a unique, specific, short, CamelCase reason for each event category. For example, FreeDiskSpaceInvalid is a good event reason because it is likely to refer to just one situation, but Started is not a good reason because it doesn't sufficiently indicate what started, even when combined with other event fields.

Error creating foo or Error creating foo %s would be appropriate for an event message, with the latter being preferable, since it is more informational.

Accumulate repeated events in the client, especially for frequent events, to reduce data volume, load on the system, and noise exposed to users.

• Go field names must be PascalCase. JSON field names must be camelCase. Other than capitalization of the initial letter, the two should almost always match. No underscores or dashes in either.
• Field and resource names should be declarative, not imperative (SomethingDoer, DoneBy, DoneAt).
• Use Node where referring to the node resource in the context of the cluster. Use Host where referring to properties of the individual physical/virtual system, such as hostname, hostPath, hostNetwork, etc.
• FooController is a deprecated kind naming convention. Name the kind after the thing being controlled instead (e.g., Job rather than JobController).
• The name of a field that specifies the time at which something occurs should be called somethingTime. Do not use stamp (e.g., creationTimestamp).
• We use the fooSeconds convention for durations, as discussed in the units subsection.
  • fooPeriodSeconds is preferred for periodic intervals and other waiting periods (e.g., over fooIntervalSeconds).
  • fooTimeoutSeconds is preferred for inactivity/unresponsiveness deadlines.
  • fooDeadlineSeconds is preferred for activity completion deadlines.
• Do not use abbreviations in the API, except where they are extremely commonly used, such as "id", "args", or "stdin".
• Acronyms should similarly only be used when extremely commonly known. All letters in the acronym should have the same case, using the appropriate case for the situation. For example, at the beginning of a field name, the acronym should be all lowercase, such as "httpGet". Where used as a constant, all letters should be uppercase, such as "TCP" or "UDP".
• The name of a field referring to another resource of kind Foo by name should be called fooName. The name of a field referring to another resource of kind Foo by ObjectReference (or subset thereof) should be called fooRef.
• More generally, include the units and/or type in the field name if they could be ambiguous and they are not specified by the value or value type.
• The name of a field expressing a boolean property called 'fooable' should be called Fooable, not IsFooable.

• The name of a namespace must be a DNS_LABEL.
• The kube- prefix is reserved for Kubernetes system namespaces, e.g. kube-system and kube-public.
• See the namespace docs for more information.

Labels are the domain of users. They are intended to facilitate organization and management of API resources using attributes that are meaningful to users, as opposed to meaningful to the system. Think of them as user-created mp3 or email inbox labels, as opposed to the directory structure used by a program to store its data. The former enables the user to apply an arbitrary ontology, whereas the latter is implementation-centric and inflexible. Users will use labels to select resources to operate on, display label values in CLI/UI columns, etc. Users should always retain full power and flexibility over the label schemas they apply to labels in their namespaces.

However, we should support conveniences for common cases by default. For example, what we now do in ReplicationController is automatically set the RC's selector and labels to the labels in the pod template by default, if they are not already set. That ensures that the selector will match the template, and that the RC can be managed using the same labels as the pods it creates. Note that once we generalize selectors, it won't necessarily be possible to unambiguously generate labels that match an arbitrary selector.

If the user wants to apply additional labels to the pods that it doesn't select upon, such as to facilitate adoption of pods or in the expectation that some label values will change, they can set the selector to a subset of the pod labels. Similarly, the RC's labels could be initialized to a subset of the pod template's labels, or could include additional/different labels.

For disciplined users managing resources within their own namespaces, it's not that hard to consistently apply schemas that ensure uniqueness. One just needs to ensure that at least one value of some label key in common differs compared to all other comparable resources. We could/should provide a verification tool to check that. However, development of conventions similar to the examples in Labels make uniqueness straightforward. Furthermore, relatively narrowly used namespaces (e.g., per environment, per application) can be used to reduce the set of resources that could potentially cause overlap.

In cases where users could be running misc. examples with inconsistent schemas, or where tooling or components need to programmatically generate new objects to be selected, there needs to be a straightforward way to generate unique label sets. A simple way to ensure uniqueness of the set is to ensure uniqueness of a single label value, such as by using a resource name, uid, resource hash, or generation number.

Problems with uids and hashes, however, include that they have no semantic meaning to the user, are not memorable nor readily recognizable, and are not predictable. Lack of predictability obstructs use cases such as creation of a replication controller from a pod, such as people want to do when exploring the system, bootstrapping a self-hosted cluster, or deletion and re-creation of a new RC that adopts the pods of the previous one, such as to rename it. Generation numbers are more predictable and much clearer, assuming there is a logical sequence. Fortunately, for deployments that's the case. For jobs, use of creation timestamps is common internally. Users should always be able to turn off auto-generation, in order to permit some of the scenarios described above. Note that auto-generated labels will also become one more field that needs to be stripped out when cloning a resource, within a namespace, in a new namespace, in a new cluster, etc., and will need to be ignored around when updating a resource via patch or read-modify-write sequence.

Inclusion of a system prefix in a label key is fairly hostile to UX. A prefix is only necessary in the case that the user cannot choose the label key, in order to avoid collisions with user-defined labels. However, I firmly believe that the user should always be allowed to select the label keys to use on their resources, so it should always be possible to override default label keys.

Therefore, resources supporting auto-generation of unique labels should have a uniqueLabelKey field, so that the user could specify the key if they wanted to, but if unspecified, it could be set by default, such as to the resource type, like job, deployment, or replicationController. The value would need to be at least spatially unique, and perhaps temporally unique in the case of job.

Annotations have very different intended usage from labels. They are primarily generated and consumed by tooling and system extensions, or are used by end-users to engage non-standard behavior of components. For example, an annotation might be used to indicate that an instance of a resource expects additional handling by non-kubernetes controllers. Annotations may carry arbitrary payloads, including JSON documents. Like labels, annotation keys can be prefixed with a governing domain (e.g. example.com/key-name). Unprefixed keys (e.g. key-name) are reserved for end-users. Third-party components must use prefixed keys. Key prefixes under the "kubernetes.io" and "k8s.io" domains are reserved for use by the kubernetes project and must not be used by third-parties.

In early versions of Kubernetes, some in-development features represented new API fields as annotations, generally with the form something.alpha.kubernetes.io/name or something.beta.kubernetes.io/name (depending on our confidence in it). This pattern is deprecated. Some such annotations may still exist, but no new annotations may be defined. New API fields are now developed as regular fields.

Other advice regarding use of labels, annotations, taints, and other generic map keys by Kubernetes components and tools:

• Key names should be all lowercase, with words separated by dashes instead of camelCase
  • For instance, prefer foo.kubernetes.io/foo-bar over foo.kubernetes.io/fooBar, prefer desired-replicas over DesiredReplicas
• Unprefixed keys are reserved for end-users. All other labels and annotations must be prefixed.
• Key prefixes under "kubernetes.io" and "k8s.io" are reserved for the Kubernetes project.
  • Such keys are effectively part of the kubernetes API and may be subject to deprecation and compatibility policies.
  • "kubernetes.io" is the preferred form for labels and annotations, "k8s.io" should not be used for new map keys.
• Key names, including prefixes, should be precise enough that a user could plausibly understand where it came from and what it is for.
• Key prefixes should carry as much context as possible.
  • For instance, prefer subsystem.kubernetes.io/parameter over kubernetes.io/subsystem-parameter
• Use annotations to store API extensions that the controller responsible for the resource doesn't need to know about, experimental fields that aren't intended to be generally used API fields, etc. Beware that annotations aren't automatically handled by the API conversion machinery.

Some of the API operations exposed by Kubernetes involve transfer of binary streams between the client and a container, including attach, exec, portforward, and logging. The API therefore exposes certain operations over upgradeable HTTP connections (described in RFC 2817) via the WebSocket and SPDY protocols. These actions are exposed as subresources with their associated verbs (exec, log, attach, and portforward) and are requested via a GET (to support JavaScript in a browser) and POST (semantically accurate).

There are two primary protocols in use today:

1. Streamed channels

   When dealing with multiple independent binary streams of data such as the remote execution of a shell command (writing to STDIN, reading from STDOUT and STDERR) or forwarding multiple ports the streams can be multiplexed onto a single TCP connection. Kubernetes supports a SPDY based framing protocol that leverages SPDY channels and a WebSocket framing protocol that multiplexes multiple channels onto the same stream by prefixing each binary chunk with a byte indicating its channel. The WebSocket protocol supports an optional subprotocol that handles base64-encoded bytes from the client and returns base64-encoded bytes from the server and character based channel prefixes ('0', '1', '2') for ease of use from JavaScript in a browser.

2. Streaming response

   The default log output for a channel of streaming data is an HTTP Chunked Transfer-Encoding, which can return an arbitrary stream of binary data from the server. Browser-based JavaScript is limited in its ability to access the raw data from a chunked response, especially when very large amounts of logs are returned, and in future API calls it may be desirable to transfer large files. The streaming API endpoints support an optional WebSocket upgrade that provides a unidirectional channel from the server to the client and chunks data as binary WebSocket frames. An optional WebSocket subprotocol is exposed that base64 encodes the stream before returning it to the client.

Clients should use the SPDY protocols if their clients have native support, or WebSockets as a fallback. Note that WebSockets is susceptible to Head-of-Line blocking and so clients must read and process each message sequentially. In the future, an HTTP/2 implementation will be exposed that deprecates SPDY.

API objects are validated upon receipt by the apiserver. Validation errors are flagged and returned to the caller in a Failure status with reason set to Invalid. In order to facilitate consistent error messages, we ask that validation logic adheres to the following guidelines whenever possible (though exceptional cases will exist).

• Be as precise as possible.
• Telling users what they CAN do is more useful than telling them what they CANNOT do.
• When asserting a requirement in the positive, use "must". Examples: "must be greater than 0", "must match regex '[a-z]+'". Words like "should" imply that the assertion is optional, and must be avoided.
• When asserting a formatting requirement in the negative, use "must not". Example: "must not contain '..'". Words like "should not" imply that the assertion is optional, and must be avoided.
• When asserting a behavioral requirement in the negative, use "may not". Examples: "may not be specified when otherField is empty", "only name may be specified".
• When referencing a literal string value, indicate the literal in single-quotes. Example: "must not contain '..'".
• When referencing another field name, indicate the name in back-quotes. Example: "must be greater than `request`".
• When specifying inequalities, use words rather than symbols. Examples: "must be less than 256", "must be greater than or equal to 0". Do not use words like "larger than", "bigger than", "more than", "higher than", etc.
• When specifying numeric ranges, use inclusive ranges when possible.

API objects often are union object containing the following:

1. One or more fields identifying the Type specific to API object (aka the discriminator).
2. A set of N fields, only one of which should be set at any given time - effectively a union.

Controllers operating on the API type often allocate resources based on the Type and/or some additional data provided by user. A canonical example of this is the Service API object where resources such as IPs and network ports will be set in the API object based on Type. When the user does not specify resources, they will be allocated, and when the user specifies exact value, they will be reserved or rejected.

When the user chooses to change the discriminator value (e.g., from Type X to Type Y) without changing any other fields then the system should clear the fields that were used to represent Type X in the union along with releasing resources that were attached to Type X. This should automatically happen irrespective of how these values and resources were allocated (i.e., reserved by the user or automatically allocated by the system. A concrete example of this is again Service API. The system allocates resources such as NodePorts and ClusterIPs and automatically fill in the fields that represent them in case of the service is of type NodePort or ClusterIP (discriminator values). These resources and the fields representing them are automatically cleared when the users changes service type to ExternalName where these resources and field values no longer apply.

Many API types include values that are allocated on behalf of the user from some larger space (e.g. IP addresses from a range, or storage bucket names). These allocations are usually driven by controllers asynchronously to the user's API operations. Sometimes the user can request a specific value and a controller must confirm or reject that request. There are many examples of this in Kubernetes, and there a handful of patterns used to represent it.

The common theme among all of these is that the system should not trust users with such fields, and must verify or otherwise confirm such requests before using them.

Some examples:

• Service clusterIP: Users may request a specific IP in spec or will be allocated one (in the same spec field). If a specific IP is requested, the apiserver will either confirm that IP is available or, failing that, will reject the API operation synchronously (rare). Consumers read the result from spec. This is safe because the value is either valid or it is never stored.
• Service loadBalancerIP: Users may request a specific IP in spec or will be allocated one which is reported in status. If a specific IP is requested, the LB controller will either ensure that IP is available or report failure asynchronously. Consumers read the result from status. This is safe because most users do not have acces to write to status.
• PersistentVolumeClaims: Users may request a specific PersistentVolume in spec or will be allocated one (in the same spec field). If a specific PV is requested, the volume controller will either ensure that the volume is available or report failure asynchronously. Consumers read the result by examining both the PVC and the PV. This is more complicated than the others because the spec value is stored before being confirmed, which could (hypothetically, thanks to extra checking) lead to a user accessing someone else's PV.
• VolumeSnapshots: Users may request a particular source to be snaphotted in spec. The details of the resulting snapshot is reflected in status.

A counter-example:

• Service externalIPs: Users must specify one or more specific IPs in spec. The system cannot easily verify those IPs (by their definition, they are external). Consumers read the result from spec. This is UNSAFE and has caused problems with untrusted users.

In the past, API conventions dictated that status fields always come from observation, which made some of these cases more complicated than necessary. The conventions have been updated to allow status to hold such allocated values. This is not a one-size-fits-all solution, though.

New APIs should almost never do this. Instead, they should use status. PersistentVolumes might have been simpler if we had done this.

Storing such values in status is the easiest and most straight-forward pattern. This is appropriate when:

• the allocated value is highly coupled to the rest of the object (e.g. pod resource allocations)
• the allocated value is always or almost always needed (i.e. most instances of this type will have a value)
• the schema and controller are known a priori (i.e. it's not an extension)
• it is "safe" to allow the controller(s) to write to status (i.e. there's low risk of them causing problems via other status fields).

Consumers of such values can look at the status field for the "final" value or an error or condition indicating why the allocation could not be performed.

Since almost everything is happening asynchronously to almost everything else, controller implementations should take care around the ordering of operations. For example, whether the controller updates a status field before or after it actuates a change depends on what guarantees need to be made to observers of the system. In some cases, writing to a status field represents an acknowledgement or acceptance of a spec value, and it is OK to write it before actuation. However, if it would be problematic for a client to observe the status value before it is actuated then the controller must actuate first and update status afterward. In some rarer cases, controllers will need to acknowledge, then actuate, then update to a "final" value.

Controllers must take care to consider how a status field will be handled in the case of interrupted control loops (e.g. controller crash and restart), and must act idempotently and consistently. This is particularly important when using an informer-fed cache, which might not be updated with recent writes. Using a resourceVersion precondition to detect the "conflict" is the common pattern in this case. See this issue for an example.

Storing allocated values in a different type is more complicated but also more flexible. This is most appropriate when:

• the allocated value is optional (i.e. many instances of this type will not have a value at all)
• the schema and controller are not known a priori (i.e. it's an extension)
• the schema is sufficiently complicated (i.e. it doesn't make sense to burden the main type with it)
• access control for this type demands finer granularity than "all of status"
• the lifecycle of the allocated value is different than the lifecycle of the allocation holder

Services and Endpoints could be considered a form of this pattern, as could PersistentVolumes and PersistentVolumeClaims.

When using this pattern, you must account for lifecycle of the allocated objects (who cleans them up and when) as well as the "linkage" between them and the main type (often using the same name, an object-ref field, or a selector).

There will always be some cases which could follow either path, and these will need human evaluation to decide. For example, Service clusterIP is highly coupled to the rest of Service and most instances use it. But it also is strictly optional and has an increasingly complicated schema of related fields. An argument could be made for either path.