Container Runtime

Functions may be written as container images. The container must run a program which:

• Reads a ResourceList from STDIN
• Writes a ResourceList to STDOUT
• Exits non-0 on failure
• Writes error messages to users on STDERR

By default containers are run without network access, and without the ability to write to volumes outside the container. All local environment variables except the TMPDIR variable are loaded into the container by default. See the fn command reference for more details.

While container functions may be written in any language so long as they adhere to the io specification (read / write ResourceList), the kpt-functions-sdk provides a solution for writing functions using typescript and the go libraries provide utilities for writing them in golang.

Imperative Run

Container functions may be run imperatively using the --image flag with kpt fn run. This will create a container from the image, then write to its STDIN a ResourceList created from the contents of the package directory, and finally read from it’s STDOUT a ResourceList used to write resource back to the package directory.

kpt fn run DIR/ --image gcr.io/a/b:v1

Declarative Run

Container functions may be run by declaring the function in a resource using the config.kubernetes.io/function annotation.

apiVersion: example.com/v1beta1
kind: ExampleKind
metadata:
  name: function-input
  annotations:
    config.kubernetes.io/function: |
      container:
        image: gcr.io/a/b:v1

To run the declared function use kpt fn run DIR/ on the directory containing the example.

Next Steps

• Explore other ways to run functions from the Functions Developer Guide.
• Find out how to structure a pipeline of functions from the functions concepts page.
• Consult the fn command reference.