Propose KEP-5116: Streaming response encoding

Author: serathius

keps/prod-readiness/sig-api-machinery/5116.yaml

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+kep-number: 5116
+beta:
+  approver: "@jpbetz"

keps/sig-api-machinery/5116-streaming-response-encoding/README.md

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+# KEP-5116: Streaming Encoding for LIST Responses
+
+<!-- toc -->
+- [Release Signoff Checklist](#release-signoff-checklist)
+- [Summary](#summary)
+- [Motivation](#motivation)
+  - [Goals](#goals)
+  - [Non-Goals](#non-goals)
+- [Proposal](#proposal)
+  - [Risks and Mitigations](#risks-and-mitigations)
+- [Design Details](#design-details)
+  - [Test Plan](#test-plan)
+      - [Prerequisite testing updates](#prerequisite-testing-updates)
+      - [Unit tests](#unit-tests)
+      - [Integration tests](#integration-tests)
+      - [e2e tests](#e2e-tests)
+  - [Graduation Criteria](#graduation-criteria)
+    - [Beta](#beta)
+    - [GA](#ga)
+  - [Upgrade / Downgrade Strategy](#upgrade--downgrade-strategy)
+  - [Version Skew Strategy](#version-skew-strategy)
+- [Production Readiness Review Questionnaire](#production-readiness-review-questionnaire)
+  - [Feature Enablement and Rollback](#feature-enablement-and-rollback)
+  - [Rollout, Upgrade and Rollback Planning](#rollout-upgrade-and-rollback-planning)
+  - [Monitoring Requirements](#monitoring-requirements)
+  - [Dependencies](#dependencies)
+  - [Scalability](#scalability)
+  - [Troubleshooting](#troubleshooting)
+- [Implementation History](#implementation-history)
+- [Drawbacks](#drawbacks)
+- [Alternatives](#alternatives)
+<!-- /toc -->
+
+## Release Signoff Checklist
+
+Items marked with (R) are required *prior to targeting to a milestone / release*.
+
+- [x] (R) Enhancement issue in release milestone, which links to KEP dir in [kubernetes/enhancements] (not the initial KEP PR)
+- [x] (R) KEP approvers have approved the KEP status as `implementable`
+- [x] (R) Design details are appropriately documented
+- [x] (R) Test plan is in place, giving consideration to SIG Architecture and SIG Testing input (including test refactors)
+  - [x] e2e Tests for all Beta API Operations (endpoints)
+  - [x] (R) Ensure GA e2e tests meet requirements for [Conformance Tests](https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/conformance-tests.md) 
+  - [x] (R) Minimum Two Week Window for GA e2e tests to prove flake free
+- [x] (R) Graduation criteria is in place
+  - [x] (R) [all GA Endpoints](https://github.com/kubernetes/community/pull/1806) must be hit by [Conformance Tests](https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/conformance-tests.md) 
+- [x] (R) Production readiness review completed
+- [x] (R) Production readiness review approved
+- [ ] "Implementation History" section is up-to-date for milestone
+- [ ] User-facing documentation has been created in [kubernetes/website], for publication to [kubernetes.io]
+- [ ] Supporting documentation—e.g., additional design documents, links to mailing list discussions/SIG meetings, relevant PRs/issues, release notes
+
+
+## Summary
+
+This KEP proposes implementing streaming encoding for LIST responses served by the Kubernetes API server.
+Existing encoders marshall response into one block allocating GBs of data and keeping it until client reads the whole response.
+For large LIST responses, this leads to excessive memory consumption in the API server.
+Streaming the encoding process can significantly reduce memory usage, improving scalability and cost-efficiency.
+
+## Motivation
+
+The Kubernetes API server's memory usage presents a significant challenge, particularly when dealing with large resources and LIST requests.
+Users can easily issue LIST requests that retrieve gigabytes of data, especially with Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), which often suffer from significant data bloat when encoded in JSON.
+
+Current API server response encoders were designed with smaller responses in mind,
+assuming they could allocate the entire response in a single contiguous memory block.
+This assumption breaks down with the scale of data returned by large LIST requests.
+Even well-intentioned users can create naive controllers that issue multiple concurrent LIST requests without properly handling the responses.
+This can lead to the API server holding entire responses in memory for extended periods, sometimes minutes, while waiting for the controller to process them.
+
+The resulting unpredictable memory usage forces administrators to significantly over-provision API server memory to accommodate potential spikes.
+
+### Goals
+
+* Implement streaming encoders for JSON and Protocol Buffer for LIST responses.
+* Significantly reduce and make more predictable the API server's memory consumption when serving large LIST responses.
+
+### Non-Goals
+
+* Implementing streaming decoders in clients. This KEP focuses on protecting the API server's memory usage. Clients can utilize existing mechanisms like pagination or WatchList to manage large datasets.
+* Implementing streaming encoders for all content types (e.g., "as=Table"). This KEP focuses on the most commonly used and resource-intensive content types to address the most impactful cases first.
+* Implementing streaming for CBOR encoding at this time. CBOR support will be considered as part of a broader effort related to CBOR serialization in Kubernetes and tracked separately.
+
+## Proposal
+
+This proposal focuses on implementing streaming encoding for JSON and Protocol Buffer (Proto) for LIST responses.
+The core idea is to avoid loading the entire LIST response into memory before encoding.
+Instead, the encoder will process objects individually, streaming the encoded data to the client.
+Assuming we will deliver all nessesery testing we plan to launch the feature directly to Beta.
+
+Encoding items one by one significantly reduces the memory footprint required by the API server.
+Given the Kubernetes limit of 1MB per object, the memory overhead per request becomes manageable.
+While this approach may increase overall CPU usage and memory allocations,
+the trade-off is considered worthwhile due to the substantial reduction in peak memory usage,
+leading to improved API server stability and scalability.
+
+Existing JSON and Proto encoding libraries do not natively support streaming.
+Therefore, custom streaming encoders will be implemented.
+Because we focus on encoding LIST responses, the implementation scope is narrowed,
+requiring encoders for a limited set of Kubernetes API types.
+We anticipate approximately 100 lines of code per encoder per type.
+Extensive testing, drawing upon test cases developed for the CBOR serialization effort,
+will ensure compatibility with existing encoding behavior.
+
+Long term, the goal is for upstream JSON and Proto libraries to natively support streaming encoding.
+For JSON, initial exploration and validation using the experimental `json/v2` package has shown
+promising results and confirmed its suitability for our requirements.
+Further details can be found in [kubernetes/kubernetes#129304](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/129304#issuecomment-2612704644).
+
+### Risks and Mitigations
+
+
+## Design Details
+
+Implementing streaming encoders specifically for LIST responses significantly reduces the scope,
+allowing us to focus on a limited set of types and avoid the complexities of a fully generic streaming encoder.
+The core difference in our approach will be special handling of the `Items` field within LIST structures.
+Instead of encoding the entire `Items` array at once, we will iterate through the array and encode each item individually, streaming the encoded data to the client.
+
+This targeted approach enables the following implementation criteria:
+
+* **Strict Validation:**  Before proceeding with streaming encoding, 
+  the implementation will rigorously validate the Go struct tags of the target type. 
+  If the tags do not precisely match the expected structure, we will fallback to standard encoder.
+  This precautionary measure prevents incompatibility upon change of structure fields or encoded representation.
+* **Delegation to Standard Encoder:**  The encoding of all fields *other than* `Items`,
+  as well as the encoding of each individual item *within* the `Items` array,
+  will be delegated to the standard `encoding/json` (for JSON) or `protobuf` (for Proto) packages.
+  This leverages the existing, well-tested encoding logic and minimizes the amount of custom code required, reducing the risk of introducing bugs.
+
+The types requiring custom streaming encoders are:
+
+* `*List` types for built-in Kubernetes API resources (e.g., `PodList`, `ConfigMapList`).
+* `UnstructuredList` for Custom Resources.
+* `runtime.Unknown` used for Proto encoder to provide type information.
+
+To further enhance robustness, a static analysis check will be introduced to detect and prevent any inconsistencies in Go struct tags across different `*List` types.
+This addresses the concern that not all `*List` types may have perfectly consistent tag definitions.
+
+### Gzip encoding
+
+As pointed out in kubernetes/kubernetes#129334#discussion_r1938405782,
+the current Kubernetes gzip encoding implementation assumes the response is written in a single large chunk,
+checking just first write size to determine if the response is large enough for compression.
+This is a bad assumption about internal encoder implementation details and should be fixed regardless.
+
+To ensure gzip compression works well with streaming,
+we will preempt all encoder changes by fixing the gzip compression.
+First will add unit tests that will prevent subsequent changes from impacting results,
+especially around the compression threshold.
+Then, we will rewrite the gzip compression to buffer the response and delay the
+decision to enable compression until we have observed enough bytes to hit the threshold
+or we received whole response and we can write it without compressing.
+
+### Test Plan
+
+[x] I/we understand the owners of the involved components may require updates to
+existing tests to make this code solid enough prior to committing the changes necessary
+to implement this enhancement.
+
+##### Prerequisite testing updates
+
+##### Unit tests
+
+We will implement testing following the cases borrowed from the CBOR test plan ([https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/tree/master/keps/sig-api-machinery/4222-cbor-serializer#test-plan](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/tree/master/keps/sig-api-machinery/4222-cbor-serializer#test-plan)), skipping tests that do not apply to streaming *encoding*, such as those related to decoding.
+
+Specifically, we will ensure byte-for-byte compatibility with the standard `encoding/json` and `protobuf` encoders for the following cases:
+
+* Preserving the distinction between integers and floating-point numbers.
+* Handling structs with duplicate field names (json tag names) without producing duplicate keys in the encoded output ([https://go.dev/issue/17913](https://go.dev/issue/17913)).
+* Encoding Go strings containing invalid UTF-8 sequences without error.
+* Preserving the distinction between absent, present-but-null, and present-and-empty states for slices and maps.
+* Ensuring raw bytes.
+
+Fuzz tests will cover the custom streaming encoders for the types with overwritten encoders:
+* testingapigroup.CarpList as surigate for builtin types
+* UnstructuredList 
+
+The skipped tests are primarily related to decoding or CBOR-specific features, which are not relevant to the streaming encoding of JSON and Proto addressed by this KEP. 
+
+##### Integration tests
+
+With one to one compatibility to standard encoder we don't expect integration tests between components will be needed.
+
+##### e2e tests
+
+Scalability tests that will confirm the improvements and protect against future regressions. 
+Improvements in the resources should be noticiable in on the perf-dash. 
+
+The tests will cover the following properties:
+* Large resource, 10'000 objects each 100KB size.
+* List with `RV=0` to ensure response is served from watch cache and all the overhead comes from encoder memory allocation.
+* Different content type JSON (default), Proto, CBOR.
+* Different resource types Configmap, Pod, Custom Resource.
+
+In first iteration we expect we will overallocate the resources needed for apiserver to ensure passage, 
+however after the improvement is implemented we will tune down the resources to detect regressions.
+
+### Graduation Criteria
+
+#### Beta
+
+- Gzip compression is supporting chunking
+- All encoder unit tests are implemented
+- Streaming encoder for JSON and Proto are implemented
+- Scalability test are running and show improvement
+
+#### GA
+
+- Scalability tests are release blocking
+
+
+### Upgrade / Downgrade Strategy
+
+We plan to provide byte to byte compatibility.
+
+### Version Skew Strategy
+
+We plan to provide byte to byte compatibility.
+
+## Production Readiness Review Questionnaire
+
+### Feature Enablement and Rollback
+
+Via feature gates
+
+###### How can this feature be enabled / disabled in a live cluster?
+
+
+- [X] Feature gate (also fill in values in `kep.yaml`)
+  - Feature gate name: StreamingCollectionEncodingToJSON, StreamingCollectionEncodingToProto
+  - Components depending on the feature gate: apiserver
+
+###### Does enabling the feature change any default behavior?
+
+No, we provide byte to byte compatibility.
+
+###### Can the feature be disabled once it has been enabled (i.e. can we roll back the enablement)?
+
+Yes, without problem.
+
+###### What happens if we reenable the feature if it was previously rolled back?
+
+###### Are there any tests for feature enablement/disablement?
+
+Yes, will be covered by unit tests.
+
+### Rollout, Upgrade and Rollback Planning
+
+N/A
+
+###### How can a rollout or rollback fail? Can it impact already running workloads?
+
+N/A
+
+###### What specific metrics should inform a rollback?
+
+N/A
+
+###### Were upgrade and rollback tested? Was the upgrade->downgrade->upgrade path tested?
+
+N/A
+
+###### Is the rollout accompanied by any deprecations and/or removals of features, APIs, fields of API types, flags, etc.?
+
+No
+
+### Monitoring Requirements
+
+
+###### How can an operator determine if the feature is in use by workloads?
+
+N/A
+
+###### How can someone using this feature know that it is working for their instance?
+
+N/A
+
+###### What are the reasonable SLOs (Service Level Objectives) for the enhancement?
+
+N/A
+
+###### What are the SLIs (Service Level Indicators) an operator can use to determine the health of the service?
+
+N/A
+
+###### Are there any missing metrics that would be useful to have to improve observability of this feature?
+
+N/A
+
+### Dependencies
+
+No
+
+###### Does this feature depend on any specific services running in the cluster?
+
+No
+
+### Scalability
+
+###### Will enabling / using this feature result in any new API calls?
+
+No
+
+###### Will enabling / using this feature result in introducing new API types?
+
+No
+
+###### Will enabling / using this feature result in any new calls to the cloud provider?
+
+No
+
+###### Will enabling / using this feature result in increasing size or count of the existing API objects?
+
+No
+
+###### Will enabling / using this feature result in increasing time taken by any operations covered by existing SLIs/SLOs?
+
+No, we expect reduction.
+
+###### Will enabling / using this feature result in non-negligible increase of resource usage (CPU, RAM, disk, IO, ...) in any components?
+
+No, we expect reduction.
+
+###### Can enabling / using this feature result in resource exhaustion of some node resources (PIDs, sockets, inodes, etc.)?
+
+No
+
+### Troubleshooting
+
+###### How does this feature react if the API server and/or etcd is unavailable?
+
+N/A
+
+###### What are other known failure modes?
+
+N/A
+
+###### What steps should be taken if SLOs are not being met to determine the problem?
+
+## Implementation History
+
+## Drawbacks
+
+Maintaining around 500 lines of custom encoder code.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+Wait for `json/v2` promotion from experimental, this reduces the maintenance, however it comes with even more risk.
+New package comes with breaking changes, testing showed that even when enabled in `v1` compatibility there might be some problems.
+

keps/sig-api-machinery/5116-streaming-response-encoding/kep.yaml

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+title: Streaming JSON Encoding for LIST Responses
+kep-number: 5116
+authors:
+  - serathius
+owning-sig: sig-api-machinery
+participating-sigs:
+  - sig-aaa
+  - sig-bbb
+status: implementable
+creation-date: 2025-01-31
+reviewers:
+  - liggit 
+approvers:
+  - deads2k
+stage: beta
+latest-milestone: "v1.33"
+milestone:
+  beta: "v1.33"
+feature-gates:
+  - name: StreamingCollectionEncodingToJSON
+    components:
+      - kube-apiserver
+  - name: StreamingCollectionEncodingToProto
+    components:
+      - kube-apiserver