Releases

Although Service APIs are an official Kubernetes project, and represent official APIs, these APIs will not be installed by default on Kubernetes clusters at this time. This project will use Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) to represent the new API types that Service APIs include.

Similar to other Kubernetes APIs, these will go through a formal Kubernetes Enhancement Proposal (KEP) review. Unlike other Kubernetes APIs, Service API releases will be independent from Kubernetes releases initially.

Service API releases will include four components: * Custom Resource Definitions to define the API. * Go client libraries. * Validation webhooks to implement cross field validations. * Conversion webhooks to convert resources between API versions.

Versioning

Versioning will be completely separate from the Kubernetes release process, but similar methodology will be used. Service API versions will use the same version level requirements as other Kubernetes features.

Service APIs are currently at the development stage of versioning described in the Kubernetes documentation above. An initial alpha release is currently planned for February 2020.

A faster release cadence will be used for alpha versions, with new alpha releases monthly. Users and controller authors will be expected to use the latest version of the API. There will be little to no provisions for backwards compatibility for alpha versions. Generally we expect the alpha API to be for users and controller developers to test out the API but not in any production environment.

Beta and stable releases will operate on a slower, more standard, release schedule. They will also provide all of the stability guarantees that other beta and stable Kubernetes features provide.

Installation

This project will be responsible for providing straightforward and reliable ways to install releases of Service APIs.

Other Official Custom Resources

This is a relatively new concept, and there is only one previous example of official custom resources being used: VolumeSnapshots. Although VolumeSnapshot CRDs can be installed directly by CSI drivers that support them, Service APIs must support multiple controllers per cluster, so the CRDs will live in and be installed from this repo.