Service Mesh Interface (SMI) is an archived Kubernetes specification for configuring common service-mesh capabilities—not a mesh product. CNCF moved it to Archived maturity on September 25, 2023, and later said maintainers recommended Gateway API’s GAMMA initiative as the direction for service-mesh work. Teams still using SMI should check what their mesh supports and plan any transition around the APIs they actually use.
What is Service Mesh Interface (SMI)?
SMI was designed to give Kubernetes users a provider-agnostic interface for common service-mesh operations. It defines Kubernetes custom resources and extension mechanisms through which teams can express supported mesh behavior. Its scope covered traffic policy, traffic telemetry, and traffic management, but SMI itself is not a service mesh that routes or observes traffic.
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The goal of interoperability did not guarantee that every mesh implemented every SMI API or version. The specification describes intended APIs; actual behavior depends on the mesh or controller, its release, and the APIs it supports. The CNCF project page and SMI repository describe the project and its specifications.
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No. CNCF records that it accepted SMI on March 19, 2020, and moved it to Archived maturity on September 25, 2023. CNCF’s archival announcement followed on October 3, 2023; it said no further work had happened under the SMI umbrella and that maintainers recommended participants follow the Gateway API GAMMA initiative under Kubernetes SIG Network. The SMI site also labels the project archived.
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Chris Aniszczyk, CTO of CNCF, explained the lifecycle decision in the archival announcement: “In CNCF, projects have a lifecycle and sometimes that includes archiving a project, especially as sandbox projects are meant for experimentation.” Archived status does not by itself say whether an existing mesh continues to support SMI; check that implementation’s documentation for the cluster and release in use.
Which APIs and resources did SMI define?
The archived repository lists core specification v0.6.0 and four component APIs. These versions describe the historical specification inventory, not current adoption or support.
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| Component | Repository version | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic Access Control | v1alpha3 | Access-control resources and rules |
| Traffic Metrics | v1alpha1 | Traffic telemetry |
| Traffic Specs | v1alpha4 | Traffic specifications |
| Traffic Split | v1alpha4 | Traffic management and splitting |
For exact resource behavior, use the corresponding versioned documents in the SMI repository; a resource definition alone does not establish that a particular implementation supports it.
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TrafficSplit is an SMI resource for expressing how traffic is divided among destinations. It was used, for example, by Argo Rollouts’ SMI integration to manage traffic during rollouts through TrafficSplit resources. That integration is specific to the documented implementation; it should not be read as universal mesh support. Argo Rollouts’ SMI traffic-management documentation now points readers toward Gateway API, GAMMA, and the Argo Rollouts Gateway API plugin following SMI’s archival.
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How did SMI TrafficTarget access control work?
In the Traffic Access Control specification, a TrafficTarget associates source identities, destination identities, and traffic rules. The specification defines access control as additive and traffic as denied by default. Its examples use Kubernetes service accounts as service identities and explain that Kubernetes RBAC should control which pods may assume the destination service account. These are specification-level semantics: operators must verify that their mesh implementation behaves accordingly. See the Traffic Access Control v1alpha3 specification.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What replaces SMI for Kubernetes service meshes?
CNCF identified Gateway API’s GAMMA initiative as the consolidation direction recommended by SMI maintainers. That is a direction for service-mesh work, not proof of a one-to-one SMI replacement or universal feature parity. Whether it fits depends on the use cases, Gateway API features, and support available in the target mesh and controller.
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Before migrating, compare the current SMI-based configuration and proposed Gateway API approach across these practical dimensions:
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- Project status: SMI is archived; confirm the maintenance and support status of the target APIs and implementation.
- Use-case coverage: List the SMI resources and behavior you rely on, then check whether the needed Gateway API and GAMMA capabilities cover them.
- Implementation support: Verify support in the specific mesh, controller, and release deployed in your cluster.
- Migration and validation: Plan for configuration changes and test resulting traffic and policy behavior against your own environment before relying on the migration.
Argo Rollouts’ guidance is relevant if you use its SMI integration: it directs users to Gateway API, GAMMA, and its Gateway API plugin. It does not establish that every SMI workload can migrate unchanged.
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How should a team using SMI proceed?
- Inventory what is deployed. Identify the SMI resource kinds, API versions, and features used by workloads, rollout tooling, and policies.
- Confirm present behavior. Check the documentation for your mesh and controller release to establish which SMI APIs are supported and how they behave.
- Map use cases, not just resource names. For each policy, traffic split, or telemetry need, verify the corresponding Gateway API or GAMMA support in the target implementation.
- Test the transition. Validate configuration, access decisions, and traffic behavior in the versions and environment you run before changing production workloads.
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