kagent AI agents Kubernetes: the framework in detail

kagent AI agents Kubernetes: the kagent-dev/kagent repository describes a « Kubernetes native » framework to build, deploy and manage AI agents. An agent becomes a Kubernetes resource, declared in YAML, tracked in Git and reconciled by a controller. The repository is licensed under Apache 2.0, and its README presents kagent as a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project. Platform teams know the problem. Each team runs its agents its own way, with its own model keys and tools, and nobody has a shared view. kagent goes through the Kubernetes API instead: the model, the MCP tools and the agent’s behaviour are declarative objects. What does the repository contain, how do you install it, and above all how do you monitor agents that call tools on your cluster? A word on honesty: span.observer has not installed or run kagent. What follows comes from the README, the repository’s docs/ folder (read on a clone on 8 November 2026) and the documentation pages on kagent.dev. The screenshots come from the repository or reproduce its files. kagent AI agents Kubernetes: what the repository says Licence: the LICENSE file contains the text of the Apache License 2.0. Who is behind it: the repository belongs to the GitHub organisation kagent-dev. The README ends with « kagent is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project » and names no commercial vendor. Languages: the repository holds a Go module (go/, with go.mod), Python packages (python/), a web interface (ui/) and Helm charts. The languages panel on the GitHub page was empty when read, so we give no percentage. Stars: the repository page showed about 4.2k stars on 8 November 2026 (a rounded value). The GitHub API was refused, so no exact figure could be read back. Version: the repository page showed no release when read, and we do not quote an official « latest version ». The 1.x installation documentation uses v1.0.0-rc3 for the CLI: that is a release candidate for 1.0, not a final release. Activity: the last commit in the clone dates from 7 November 2026. The README calls the project « in active development », with a roadmap on a GitHub board. Concepts: agents, models and MCP tools The README lists the building blocks. An Agent is a Kubernetes custom resource. An AgentTemplate carries the behaviour: system prompt, tools, subagents, model. A Harness decides how the agent runs: kagent’s own Go or Python runtimes, Codex, Claude or a custom runtime. Models are set in a ModelConfig resource. The README names OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Vertex AI and Ollama, plus custom providers behind a gateway. What you can choose depends on the Harness. Tools go through MCP. According to the README, kagent ships an MCP server with tools for Kubernetes, Istio, Helm, Argo, Prometheus, Grafana or Cilium. Agents connect through RemoteMCPServer resources, which agents can share. For the risk of this model, read MCP tool poisoning. The first screenshot shows the agent list of the web interface, taken from the README GIF. It comes from an earlier version of the interface: the 1.x interface may differ. Source : github.com Architecture: controller, PostgreSQL and Substrate The architecture documentation describes a control plane. Kubernetes stores the desired configuration (Agent, Harness, AgentTemplate, EgressPolicy and others). PostgreSQL stores runtime identity, A2A history and lifecycle state. Substrate « Actors » run the agent processes, with suspend, resume and snapshots. The controller exposes gRPC, A2A and MCP APIs. A session keeps the history, and the documentation mentions checkpoints to fork a conversation. The same documentation lists what is not implemented yet: dedicated agent bindings, policy-enforced cross-session delegation, checkpoint sharing and multi-replica gateway coordination. Installing kagent, according to the documentation Prerequisites on the 1.x installation page: Kubernetes 1.37 or later, with the PodCertificateRequest and ClusterTrustBundle APIs; helm v3 and kubectl; a model API key. For a local cluster, the page cites kind v0.32.0 or later. kagent 1.0 does not upgrade in place from 0.10.x. Evaluation path: the CLI The CLI deploys a development PostgreSQL database, then installs the charts in order. Commands from the page (dummy key): kind create cluster --name kagent --image kindest/node:v1.37.0 export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-api-key-here" curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kagent-dev/kagent/refs/heads/main/scripts/get-kagent | bash -s -- --version v1.0.0-rc3 kagent version cat > kagent-values.yaml