Knative

Knative is our core serverless platform for deploying AI agents and automation workflows. It provides scale-to-zero capabilities that dramatically reduce infrastructure costs while maintaining enterprise-grade reliability.

Why Knative is crucial for AI agents:

• Scale-to-Zero: Agents scale down to zero when idle, reducing costs by 70-80%
• Event-Driven: Native support for event-driven agent workflows and triggers
• Auto-Scaling: Intelligent scaling based on request volume and custom metrics
• Container Native: Deploy any containerized agent or workflow without vendor lock-in
• Production Ready: Battle-tested in enterprise environments with comprehensive monitoring

AI-specific benefits:

• Cost Optimization: Pay only for actual agent processing time, not idle resources
• Burst Scaling: Handle sudden spikes in agent requests automatically
• Multi-Tenancy: Isolate different agent workflows and teams safely
• GPU Support: Scale GPU-enabled agents for intensive AI workloads
• Cold Start Optimization: Optimized for AI container startup times

Integration with our platform stack:

• Kubernetes Foundation: Built on our existing EKS infrastructure
• Istio Service Mesh: Automatic mTLS and traffic management for agent communication
• Prometheus Monitoring: Track agent performance, costs, and resource usage
• External Secrets: Secure injection of API keys and credentials for agents
• ArgoCD GitOps: Automated deployment and configuration management

Deployment patterns we use:

• Stateless Agents: ReAct agents that process individual requests
• Event Processors: Agents triggered by business events (document uploads, user actions)
• Scheduled Workflows: Cron-like agents for periodic automation tasks
• Multi-Agent Systems: Coordinated agents with event-based communication

Best practices:

• Optimize container images for fast cold starts
• Use health checks and readiness probes for reliable scaling
• Implement circuit breakers for external service dependencies
• Monitor token usage and costs with custom metrics