ax

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:41:00 +0800

google/ax

AX

[!WARNING] We are still actively refining our core concepts, protocols, and specifications. We will likely to introduce major breaking changes prior to a stable release.

Declare an agentic task with workspaces and gateway specifications. AX sandboxes it, wires up its workspace, fences its network, and helps running it at scale.

AX is a high-throughput, declarative orchestrator to run billions of autonomous agent workloads in a cluster. It runs on top of Agent Substrate for sandboxed execution and is built to run billions of tasks per cluster. If you have used Kubernetes, ax will feel similar.

# task.yaml
apiVersion: ax.io/v1alpha1
kind: Workspace
metadata:
  name: golang
spec:
  git:
    - repo: https://github.com/golang/go.git
      branch: "my-fix"
---
apiVersion: ax.io/v1alpha1
kind: Task
metadata:
  name: test
spec:
  workspaces:
    - name: golang
      goal: "Ensure that Go tool chain is available and is built from source"
  debug: true   # lets you `ax ssh` into the sandbox

Then apply it, watch it come up, and look over the agent’s shoulder:

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ax apply -f task.yaml
ax watch task test
ax ssh test -- ls -al /workspace

Why?

Agents are a new kind of workload. They are neither stateless microservices nor run-to-completion batch jobs. They accumulate state, need strict isolation, call out to model APIs and tool servers, and can burn money in a loop if nobody is watching. AX gives you four small primitives that handle all of that declaratively:

You want to…	AX gives you
Run untrusted agent code in an isolated sandbox with CPU/memory limits	`Task`
Pre-wire Git repos, MCP servers, and skill packages so every agent starts warm	`Workspace`
Lock outbound traffic down to an explicit host allowlist	`Gateway`
Configure which LLM the platform itself uses, with credentials from a Kubernetes secret	`Model`
Pause an idle agent and pick up exactly where it left off	`ax suspend` / `ax resume`
Shell into a running agent to see what it is doing	`ax ssh`

Everything is expressed as ax.io/v1alpha1 manifests and applied with a single command.

Quick start

1. Install the CLI

`1`	`go install github.com/google/ax/cmd/ax@latest`

This puts the ax binary in $(go env GOPATH)/bin. Make sure that directory is on your PATH.

2. Deploy the control plane

You need a Kubernetes cluster, ko (brew install ko), a container registry your cluster can pull from, and a reachable Agent Substrate Control API (in-cluster default: api.ate-system.svc.cluster.local:443).

`1`	`make deploy AX_IMAGE_REPO=<your-registry>`

This deploys Redis, then builds and deploys the control plane images with ko. Everything lands in the ax-system namespace.

3. Run your first task

ax apply -f examples/task.yaml       # Task + Workspace + Gateway + Model in one file
ax get tasks
# NAME      ATESPACE   PHASE     ACTOR           WORKER-IP    AGE
# task123   default    Running   task123         10.20.3.67   1m

ax watch task task123                # stream phase and condition changes live
ax ssh task123 -- ls -la /workspace  # poke around inside the sandbox
ax suspend task task123              # checkpoint and pause
ax resume task task123               # pick up where it left off

Want to see the whole lifecycle end to end? Run ./demo.sh. It applies a custom workspace, waits for readiness, runs commands over ax ssh, and suspends the task.

Documentation

Guide	Read it to…
Concepts	Learn what a `Task`, `Workspace`, `Gateway`, and `Model` each do, and how a task moves through phases and conditions.
Manifests	Write your own YAML, with an annotated example of every kind.
Sandbox	See what the runner does on boot and what your command can rely on: metadata server, guest services, environment.
Runners	Understand the contract between the control plane and the task container, and build your own runner image to replace the default.
Networking	Reach a running task through the atenet router from the cluster, your laptop, or a gRPC client.
Architecture	Understand how the control plane fits together, plus the API reference.
Development	Build, test, and ship changes to AX itself.

CLI usage

ax talks to the control plane over gRPC. It is deliberately kubectl-shaped: apply, get, describe, watch, delete, plus a few agent-specific verbs.

Everyday commands

# Apply anything (multi-document YAML, file or stdin)
ax apply -f examples/task.yaml

# Tasks
ax get tasks                          # list
ax get tasks -a my-atespace           # list in another atespace
ax get task task123                   # full spec + live status as YAML
ax describe task task123              # human-readable detail
ax watch task task123                 # stream status and condition transitions
ax suspend task task123               # checkpoint actor state and pause
ax resume task task123                # resume a suspended task
ax delete task task123

# Shell into the running sandbox
ax ssh task123                        # interactive shell (task needs spec.debug: true)
ax ssh task123 -- ls -la /workspace   # one-off command
ax ssh task123 -- python3 main.py

# Gateways, workspaces, models follow the same pattern
ax get gateways
# NAME              ATESPACE   LISTENERS             EGRESS-HOSTS
# default-gateway   default    8494/gRPC,8080/HTTP   *
ax describe gateway default-gateway
ax delete gateway default-gateway

ax get workspaces
# NAME                ATESPACE   GIT-REPOS   MCP-SERVERS
# default-workspace   default    1           1
ax describe workspace default-workspace
ax delete workspace default-workspace

ax get models
# NAME            ATESPACE   PROVIDER   MODEL
# default-model   default    google     gemini-3.8-flash
ax describe model default-model
ax delete model default-model

# Connection plumbing
ax ctx                                # active kube context and how ax is reaching the control plane
ax tunnel list                        # background tunnels (state lives in ~/.ax/tunnels)
ax tunnel stop
ax version

Works with `kubectx`

ax follows your active Kubernetes context. Switch clusters and ax resolves and tunnels to that cluster’s control plane in the background.

kubectx staging-cluster
ax get tasks

kubectx prod-cluster
ax get tasks

# Or target a context without switching
ax --context=dev-cluster get tasks

Global flags

Flag	Description	Default
`-a`, `--atespace`	Atespace scope for the command	`default`
`-n`, `--namespace`	Kubernetes namespace where AX is installed	`ax-system`
`--context`	Kubernetes context to target	active `kubectx` / `current-context`
`--server`	Control plane address, bypassing auto-detection	derived from kube context, or `$AX_SERVER`

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

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