## What
Updates the project overview language in the three docs that share it,
and fixes a long-standing typo.
- **`README.md`** — replaces the overview paragraph with the
secure-by-default positioning: density relative to standard container
runtimes, resume latency and activation throughput, and native
kernel/network isolation.
- **`docs/architecture.md`** — adopts the same lead sentence, keeping
the existing control-plane detail; `computer infrastructure` → `compute
infrastructure`.
- **`docs/roadmap.md`** — `computer infrastructure` → `compute
infrastructure`.
## Notes
The performance figures in the README paragraph (density multiple,
sub-500ms resume, activation rate) have been discussed and aligned
separately.
Docs-only change; no code or behavior is affected.
## Summary
A follow up to #640 where we introduced PostgreSQL as an alternative
storage backend, selected conditionally in ateapi.
- Deleted ateredis, its tests, and its dependencies
- Removed Redis backend selection and configuration so ateapi always
connects to Postgres
- Replaced Valkey resources with Postgres in the standard and Kind
deployment paths and simplified install script
- Replaced miniredis fixtures with isolated Postgres testcontainers and
added centralized helpers for seeding resources
- Renamed Redis-specific debug flush command to backend-neutral
`debug-clear-store` in CLI
- Updated comments and docs where applicable
## Benchmarking
Extensive benchmarking have been performed to evaluate Redis vs
Postgres, and results can be found in these two documents:
-
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10K0wB6aTeFkJCL4HN3NbLJCdFGoLYdhIcqkFnqFHkKc/edit?usp=sharing
-
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12-ko_BFHcBo_nJkx9f4B7zMbiiWKC2saGhMhZG3aQ-s/edit?usp=sharing
---------
Signed-off-by: Jet Chiang <pokyuen.jetchiang-ext@solo.io>
Fixed language describing project goals and relationship to Kubernetes
in readme.md, architecture.md and roadmap.md
- changed the top language to focus on project goals instead of
Kubernetes relations
- changed the language describing Kubernetes relationship to describe
value of the Agent Substrate layer and Kubernetes layer
Sessions are no longer a concept in Substrate; Actor is the glossary
term. This completes the "s/Session/Actor" TODO that sat at the top of
ateapi.proto, and removes the TODO.
API surface:
service SessionIdentity -> ActorIdentity
MintJWTRequest.session_id -> actor_id
MintJWTResponse.session_jwt -> actor_jwt
MintCertRequest.session_id -> actor_id
MintCertResponse.session_certificates -> actor_certificates
Go packages:
cmd/ateapi/internal/sessionidentity -> actoridentity
cmd/ateapi/internal/sessionidjwt -> actoridjwt
Flags and cluster resources:
--session-id-jwt-pool -> --actor-id-jwt-pool
--session-id-ca-pool -> --actor-id-ca-pool
Secrets, volumes and mount paths renamed to match, in both
manifests/ate-install/ate-api-server.yaml and hack/install-ate.sh
(--create-session-id-ca-pool-secret -> --create-actor-id-ca-pool-secret).
Two credential identity values change with the rename:
JWT issuer https://broker.agentic-substrate-session-id-broker.svc
-> https://broker.agentic-substrate-actor-id-broker.svc
SPIFFE ID spiffe://substrate-session.local/app/../session/..
-> spiffe://substrate-actor.local/app/../actor/..
Tokens and certificates issued before this change will not validate
against the new issuer or trust domain.
BREAKING: the gRPC wire path moves from /ateapi.SessionIdentity/* to
/ateapi.ActorIdentity/*, and the Secrets must be recreated under their
new names before the new ate-api-server rolls out.
- workerpool_apply: rename applyMicroVMPodShape -> maybeApplyMicroVMPodShape and
pass wp.Spec.SandboxClass instead of the whole WorkerPool.
- sandboxconfig validation test: add an arm64 micro-VM asset-set case.
- specconv: TODO to forward Seccomp/Sysctl + Apparmor/SELinux for OCI parity.
- run.go: clarify the dialAgentRetry per-attempt cap vs retry-gap comment.
- roadmap: drop the microVM line (shipped).
Assemble + stage the micro-VM runtime assets, an ateom-base image (debian-slim +
e2fsprogs for mkfs.ext4), and run-microvm-demo.sh to build + deploy the
counter-microvm demo end to end (overriding the worker base via KO_CONFIG_PATH so
no committed file is edited). Document the micro-VM sandbox class.
This is the initial release of the Agent Substrate.
Agent substrate is a system built on top of Kubernetes which manages agent-like
workloads to achieve higher scale and efficiency than Kubernetes alone can
offer, with lower latency. It builds on top of Kubernetes features like
Pods and Pod autoscaling, but takes the Kubernetes control-plane out of the
critical path to achieve lower latency.
It can run on any Kubernetes cluster and does not inhibit “regular” use of
Kubernetes in any way. Kubernetes provides the infrastructure provisioning and
management for all types of workloads, while Agent Substrate provides
agent-specific scheduling and control.
At its core, Agent Substrate maps a larger set of “actors” (applications such
as agents) onto a smaller set of ready “workers” (Kubernetes Pods), relying on
the fact that agent-like applications tend to be idle most of the time to
achieve heavy multiplexing. It provides functionality to manage an actor’s
lifecycle (e.g. create/destroy, suspend/resume), to assign actors to workers in real
time, and to route incoming traffic to them.
Agent Substrate is intended to be a low-opinion system. The workloads it
manages don't have to be literal AI agents, but those are the best example of
the kind of applications it is designed for. It is not an SDK for building
agents, but rather a system for running them at scale.
Agent Substrate is currently in VERY early development. It is not ready for
production use, and the APIs are almost guaranteed to change. We are not
making any guarantees about backward compatibility at this stage, and
everything in this project may be changed.
Co-authored-by: Alex Bulankou <alexbu@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Benjamin Elder <bentheelder@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Bowei Du <bowei@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Dmitry Berkovich <dberkov@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Fabricio Voznika <fvoznika@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Francisco Cabrera <fclieutier@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Haven Xia <haoyuxia@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Julian Gutierrez Oschmann <juliangut@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Kevin Steuer <ksteuer@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Max Smythe <smythe@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Maya Wang <mymaya@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Michael Taufen <mtaufen@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Shruti Nair <shrutinair@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Taahir Ahmed <taahm@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Tim Hockin <thockin@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Zoe Zhao <zoezhao@google.com>
Alex Zakonov