google/ax

AX is Google's open, declarative orchestration runtime for running many autonomous agent workloads on a Kubernetes cluster. It is aimed at teams that already treat agents as a workload to be scheduled, isolated and inspected, and that want a kubectl-shaped interface for doing so.

What it does and how it works

AX centres on three YAML primitives, applied as ax.io/v1alpha1 manifests with one command. A Task runs agent code in an isolated sandbox with CPU and memory limits; a Workspace pre-wires Git repositories, MCP servers and skill packages so each agent starts warm; a Model configures which LLM the platform uses, with credentials taken from a Kubernetes secret. Tasks move through phases and conditions, and can be suspended to checkpoint an idle agent and resumed to continue from the same state. ax ssh lets you look inside a running sandbox when spec.debug is enabled. The CLI talks to the control plane over gRPC and follows the active kubectx context, tunnelling to that cluster's control plane in the background; --context, --server and --atespace select alternatives. See the concepts guide and manifest reference for the full model.

The deployment path and its prerequisites

This is not a desktop tool: every task is scheduled as a sandboxed actor on Agent Substrate, so you need a Kubernetes cluster with Substrate installed and its Control API at the expected service address before deploying AX. The quick start also assumes Go, kubectl, and either Podman or Docker authenticated to a registry the cluster can pull from. Installation means installing the CLI, building and pushing the ax-server and ax-task-runner images to your registry, and deploying the control plane with make deploy, which also deploys PostgreSQL into the ax-system namespace. Check the prerequisites and Substrate README before starting.

Important limitations

The README carries a prominent warning that AX and several features are under heavy development, with core concepts, protocols and specifications still being refined and major breaking changes expected before a stable release. Scale claims such as millions of tasks per cluster are the project's own description, not an independently reported benchmark. For deeper detail, the sandbox, runner, networking, and architecture docs cover the execution contract, and the roadmap lists planned work. AX is licensed under Apache-2.0, which permits commercial and modified use under its terms; see the license.