LanguageAgent¶
The LanguageAgent CRD represents an autonomous AI agent deployment in Kubernetes.
Overview¶
A LanguageAgent runs a container image with: - LLM access through the shared cluster proxy - Tool endpoints for extended capabilities - Persona configuration for behavioral templates - Instructions for tasks and goals - Workspace storage for persistent state
Quick Example¶
apiVersion: langop.io/v1alpha1
kind: LanguageAgent
metadata:
name: my-agent
namespace: my-cluster
spec:
runtime: openclaw # use a bundled LanguageAgentRuntime
models:
- name: claude-sonnet
workspace:
size: 10Gi
Or with a custom image and no runtime:
spec:
image: ghcr.io/my-org/my-agent:latest
models:
- name: claude-sonnet
instructions: |
You are a helpful AI assistant.
Complete API Reference¶
See the Complete API Reference for full field documentation including:
- LanguageAgent - Top-level resource
- LanguageAgentSpec - Specification fields
- LanguageAgentStatus - Status and conditions
Key Concepts¶
Runtimes¶
A LanguageAgentRuntime is a cluster-scoped preset that packages image, port, init containers, probes, and env vars for a specific agent type. Reference one with spec.runtime:
The standard runtimes (openclaw, opencode) are bundled with the Helm chart. See LanguageAgentRuntime for details.
Credentials¶
Agents inject credentials through the generic spec.credentials list. Each entry's name is both the environment variable name and the key in the operator-managed Secret:
spec:
runtime: openclaw
credentials:
- name: OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN # auto-generated once, persisted, never rotated
- name: MY_API_KEY
value: "literal-value" # stored in the {agent}-runtime Secret
- name: SHARED_SECRET
valueFrom:
name: my-existing-secret # all keys injected via envFrom; operator manages nothing
Each entry is resolved in priority order:
valueFromset — the referenced Secret's keys are injected viaenvFrom; the operator creates no Secret of its own.valueset — the literal is stored in an operator-managed Secret named{agent}-runtimeand injected viaenvFrom.- neither set — the operator auto-generates a random value once, persists it in the
{agent}-runtimeSecret, and preserves it across reconciles (it is never rotated).
Entries declared by the agent's runtime are merged first, then the agent's own entries are appended. Entries are deduplicated by name, with the agent's entry winning on a collision. Runtimes typically declare the credentials their image needs (for example, the openclaw runtime declares OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN), so most agents need no credentials block at all.
Authentication¶
Agents cannot configure authentication directly. Whether an agent sits behind the cluster's OIDC proxy is determined by its runtime's auth.enabled setting combined with the cluster's auth.enabled setting. See LanguageAgentRuntime and Clusters for the effective model.
Self-Configuration¶
spec.selfConfigure controls whether the agent pod may submit LanguageAgentSelfConfig requests to modify its own spec at runtime. When enabled, the operator grants the agent's ServiceAccount permission to create LanguageAgentSelfConfig resources in the same namespace.
spec.selfConfigure fields (SelfConfigureSpec):
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
enabled |
*bool | false |
Gate for all self-configuration. When false, any LanguageAgentSelfConfig targeting this agent is immediately denied. |
allowedActions |
[]string | [] |
Allowlist of self-config categories. When enabled is true but this list is empty, all actions are denied. Valid values: tools, models, envVars, instructions, roleRules. |
See LanguageAgentSelfConfig for the full self-config request API.
Model References¶
Each entry in spec.models is a ModelReference with the following fields:
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | required | Name of a LanguageModel resource |
role |
string | primary |
Hint for the agent runtime. Valid values: primary, fallback, reasoning, tool-calling, summarization |
priority |
integer | — | Optional selection priority hint; lower value = higher priority |
The role and priority fields are surfaced in /etc/agent/config.yaml under each model entry. The operator does not enforce them — they are hints for the agent runtime's model selection logic.
Example:
Tool References¶
Each entry in spec.tools is a ToolReference with the following fields:
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | required | Name of a LanguageTool resource |
enabled |
boolean | true |
Set to false to temporarily disable a tool without removing the reference |
When enabled is false, the tool endpoint is not injected into /etc/agent/config.yaml and not included in MCP_SERVERS.
Example:
tools:
- name: web-search
enabled: true
- name: code-executor
enabled: false # disabled — endpoint not injected
Port References¶
Each entry in spec.ports is an AgentPort with the following fields:
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
string | required | Port name; used as the Service port name. Must match ^[a-z][a-z0-9-]*$, max 15 characters |
port |
int32 | required | Container port number (1–65535) |
protocol |
string | TCP |
Transport protocol: TCP, UDP, or SCTP |
expose |
bool | false |
When true, the HTTPRoute targets this port for external access. If no port has expose: true, the first port is used. At most one port should have expose: true |
When spec.ports is empty, the operator defaults to a single port named http on port 8080.
Example:
ports:
- name: http
port: 8080
expose: true
- name: metrics
port: 9090 # internal only — not exposed via HTTPRoute
- name: data
port: 5000
protocol: UDP
Network Policies¶
Control what traffic agents can send and receive:
Each peer in ingress[].from and egress[].to is a NetworkPeer. See NetworkPeer fields for the full field reference including dns (FQDN-based egress) and group (langop label selector).
Configuration Injection¶
The operator automatically mounts:
/etc/agent/config.yaml- Instructions, personas, models, tools
Environment variables injected into every agent container and all init containers:
| Variable | Value |
|---|---|
AGENT_NAME |
metadata.name of the LanguageAgent |
AGENT_NAMESPACE |
metadata.namespace of the LanguageAgent |
AGENT_UUID |
Stable UUID assigned to this agent (from status.uuid) |
AGENT_CLUSTER_NAME |
Name of the LanguageCluster this agent belongs to |
AGENT_CLUSTER_UUID |
Kubernetes UID of the LanguageCluster |
MODEL_ENDPOINT |
Shared LiteLLM gateway URL (http://gateway.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local:8000) |
LLM_MODEL |
Comma-separated list of model names for all referenced models |
MCP_SERVERS |
Comma-separated MCP tool server URLs (only injected when at least one tool is resolved) |
AGENT_INSTRUCTIONS |
Content of spec.instructions; only set when instructions are non-empty |
AGENT_REPO_DIR |
Absolute path to the cloned repository (the agent container's working directory). Only injected when spec.repository is set. See Repository. |
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT |
Propagated from the operator environment when configured |
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME |
Set to agent-<name> when OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT is configured |
OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES |
Propagated from the operator environment (conditional on OTEL endpoint) |
OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER |
Propagated from the operator environment (conditional on OTEL endpoint) |
OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG |
Propagated from the operator environment (conditional on OTEL endpoint) |
Additional variables from spec.deployment.env and spec.deployment.envFrom are passed through unchanged. See Environment Variables in the architecture docs for the full reference.
Workspace¶
When spec.workspace.enabled is true (the default), the operator provisions a PersistentVolumeClaim and mounts it into the agent container and all init containers. The PVC is normally deleted when the LanguageAgent is deleted; set retain: true to preserve it across agent deletions.
spec.workspace fields (WorkspaceSpec):
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
enabled |
*bool | true |
Create and mount a workspace PVC. Set to false to disable without removing the workspace config. |
size |
string | 10Gi |
PVC storage request (e.g. "10Gi", "500Mi") |
mountPath |
string | /workspace |
Mount path in the container |
storageClassName |
*string | cluster default | StorageClass for the PVC |
accessMode |
string | ReadWriteOnce |
PVC access mode: ReadWriteOnce or ReadWriteMany |
retain |
*bool | false |
When true, the PVC's ownerReference is removed on agent deletion so Kubernetes GC does not collect it. The orphaned PVC name is surfaced in status.workspacePVCName. |
initialFiles |
map[string]string | — | Files seeded into the workspace on first boot only. Keys are filenames; values are file contents. Files are not overwritten if they already exist. |
seedConfigMapRef |
*LocalObjectReference | — | External ConfigMap whose keys are filenames and values are file contents. Merged with initialFiles; initialFiles wins on key collision. |
When retain is true and the agent is deleted, status.workspacePVCName records the name of the orphaned PVC so it can be located and reattached later.
Repository¶
When spec.repository is set, the operator adds a repository init container that clones a git repository into the workspace before the agent starts. The agent container's working directory is set to the clone path, and AGENT_REPO_DIR is injected into every container so the runtime can locate it.
The clone is clone-once: if the target directory already contains a .git directory the clone is skipped, so edits and commits made by the agent survive pod restarts. Because the clone lands in the workspace, declaring spec.repository automatically defaults spec.workspace.enabled to true; declaring a repository while spec.workspace.enabled is explicitly false is rejected by the webhook.
spec.repository fields (RepositorySpec):
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
url |
string | — | Git repository to clone, either HTTPS (https://...) or SSH (git@host:org/repo.git). Required. |
ref |
string | default branch | Branch, tag, or commit SHA to check out. |
path |
string | repo name from URL | Subdirectory under the workspace mountPath to clone into. Must be relative (no leading /, no .. segments). |
depth |
int | 0 (full clone) |
When > 0, performs a shallow clone with this history depth. |
secretRef |
*LocalObjectReference | — | Secret holding git credentials for private repositories. Recognized keys: token, or username + password (HTTPS); ssh-privatekey (SSH). |
The clone target is <workspace mountPath>/<path> — e.g. with the default mountPath: /workspace and path: app, the repository is cloned to /workspace/app and AGENT_REPO_DIR is set to /workspace/app. When path is omitted, the directory name is derived from the URL (e.g. https://github.com/org/repo.git → /workspace/repo).
The operator never reads the credentials Secret; it is mounted read-only into the repository init container, which selects SSH or HTTPS auth based on which keys are present.
Private repository example (HTTPS token):
apiVersion: langop.io/v1alpha1
kind: LanguageAgent
metadata:
name: code-agent
namespace: default
spec:
image: myregistry/agent-runtime:latest
repository:
url: https://github.com/myorg/private-repo.git
ref: main
path: app
depth: 1
secretRef:
name: git-credentials
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: git-credentials
namespace: default
type: Opaque
stringData:
token: ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx # a personal access token (HTTPS)
# For SSH instead, provide an ssh-privatekey key and a git@host:... url.
Resource Management¶
Agents are deployed as standard Kubernetes Deployments with:
- Configurable replicas (
spec.deployment.replicas) - Resource limits and requests (
spec.deployment.resources) - Node selectors, tolerations, and affinity rules
- Custom liveness, readiness, and startup probes
Monitoring¶
spec.monitoring integrates the agent with Prometheus Operator. The operator silently skips this if prometheus-operator is not installed.
spec:
monitoring:
serviceMonitor:
enabled: true
path: /metrics
interval: 30s
rules:
- name: agent-alerts
rules:
- alert: AgentDown
expr: up{job="my-agent"} == 0
for: 5m
labels:
severity: critical
spec.monitoring.serviceMonitor fields (AgentServiceMonitorSpec):
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
enabled |
bool | — | Create a ServiceMonitor for this agent. Required. |
port |
string | first port name, or "http" |
Name of the service port to scrape |
path |
string | /metrics |
HTTP path to scrape for metrics |
interval |
string | Prometheus default | Scrape interval (e.g. "30s") |
scrapeTimeout |
string | Prometheus default | Per-scrape timeout |
labels |
map[string]string | — | Additional labels added to the ServiceMonitor metadata |
spec.monitoring.rules[] fields (PrometheusRuleGroup):
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
name |
string | Rule group name. Required. |
interval |
string | Evaluation interval for this group. Uses Prometheus default when omitted. |
rules |
[]PrometheusAlertingRule | Alerting or recording rules in this group. At least one required. |
spec.monitoring.rules[].rules[] fields (PrometheusAlertingRule):
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
alert |
string | Alert name (leave empty for recording rules) |
record |
string | Output metric name for recording rules (leave empty for alerting rules) |
expr |
string | PromQL expression. Required. |
for |
string | Duration condition must be true before alert fires (alerting rules only) |
labels |
map[string]string | Labels attached to the alert or recording rule |
annotations |
map[string]string | Annotations attached to the alert (alerting rules only) |
Requires prometheus-operator
The operator creates ServiceMonitor and PrometheusRule resources only when prometheus-operator CRDs are present in the cluster. If prometheus-operator is not installed, spec.monitoring is silently ignored.
Related Resources¶
- LanguageModel - Configure LLM access
- LanguageTool - Add tool capabilities
- LanguagePersona - Define behavioral templates
- LanguageAgentSelfConfig - Runtime self-modification requests
- Agent Runtime Contract - What the operator injects