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Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions.

KAITO has adopted the Cloud Native Compute Foundation Code of Conduct. For more information see the KAITO Code of Conduct.

Development​

Prerequisites​

  • Go 1.24 or later
  • Tilt for rapid, local development
  • Docker for building container images
  • Kubernetes cluster with Karpenter supported (e.g. AKS, EKS)

Getting Started​

1. Fork and Clone the Repository​

git clone git@github.com:<username>/kaito.git
cd kaito

2. Create tilt-settings.yaml​

Tilt streamlines Kubernetes development by automating image builds, deployments, and live updates. Instead of manually building and pushing images to a registry, Tilt handles this process and hot-reloads changes (Go binaries and CRD YAML files) in real-time.

To configure Tilt, create a tilt-settings.yaml file in the repository root:

cat <<EOF > tilt-settings.yaml
default_registry: <acr_name>.azurecr.io
allowed_contexts:
  - <context_name>
cluster_name: <cluster_name>
EOF
  • default_registry: The container registry where Tilt pushes development images (e.g. <acr_name>.azurecr.io). Ensure you're logged in with docker login and have push/pull permissions. If you want to use Azure Container Registry (ACR), set up a new ACR instance and attach it to your AKS cluster with these commands:
export ACR_NAME=<acr_name>
export RESOURCE_GROUP=<resource_group>
export CLUSTER_NAME=<cluster_name>

az acr -n $ACR_NAME create --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --sku Basic
az acr login -n $ACR_NAME
az aks update -n $CLUSTER_NAME -g $RESOURCE_GROUP --attach-acr $ACR_NAME

  • allowed_contexts: The Kubernetes contexts Tilt is permitted to use. List your available contexts with kubectl config get-contexts.

  • cluster_name: The name of your Kubernetes cluster. If omitted, Tilt defaults to your current kubectl context.

  • preset_registry_name: Overrides the registry the controller pulls preset base images from (e.g. <acr_name>.azurecr.io). When unset, the chart default (mcr.microsoft.com/aks/kaito) is used.

  • feature_gates: A map of controller feature gates to enable. For example:

    feature_gates:
      vLLM: true
      gatewayAPIInferenceExtension: true
      disableNodeAutoProvisioning: true
      enableInferenceSetController: true
      enableBaseImageAutoUpgrade: true
      enableMIG: true

  • gpu_feature_discovery: Overrides for KAITO's bundled gpu-feature-discovery subchart. For example:

    gpu_feature_discovery:
      nfd:
        enabled: false
      gfd:
        enabled: false

3. Start Tilt​

To start Tilt, run the following command in the root of the repository:

tilt up
Example Output
Tilt started on http://localhost:10350/
v0.34.0, built 2025-03-11

(space) to open the browser
(s) to stream logs (--stream=true)
(t) to open legacy terminal mode (--legacy=true)
(ctrl-c) to exit
Opening browser: http://localhost:10350/

Tilt UI

Tilt automates the following steps during tilt up:

  1. Start the Tilt Server: Runs locally at http://localhost:10350/ and opens the Tilt UI in your browser (press space).
  1. Generate and Build: Creates CRD YAML files (make generate manifests) and compiles the controller manager Go binary (go build), saving it to ./tilt_bin.
  2. Build Development Image: Packages the binary into a container image and tag it with <default_registry>/kaito/workspace:tilt-<hash>), then pushes it to your container registry.
  3. Apply CRDs: Deploys CRDs to the cluster with kubectl apply --server-side -f charts/kaito/crds/.
  4. Deploy Resources: Renders the Helm chart (helm template charts/kaito/workspace) and applies it to the cluster, including the controller manager, webhooks, RBAC, and NVIDIA device plugin resources.
  5. Live Updates: Detects changes to the controller manager source code, rebuilds the binary, updates the container, and restarts the controller manager within the container without re-deploying the pod - all in ~30 seconds.