GitHub - xiaods/k8e: k8e.sh - OpenSource Agentic AI Sandbox Matrix

k8e.sh — Open Source Agentic AI Sandbox Matrix. A CNCF-conformant Kubernetes distribution in a single binary under 100MB, purpose-built for secure, isolated AI agent execution at scale. Up and running in 60 seconds. Inspired by K3s.

curl -sfL https://k8e.sh/install.sh | sh -

That's it. Your agentic sandbox matrix is ready. 🤖

📖 Table of Contents

#	Section
1	🤖 What is K8E?
2	🔒 Agentic AI Sandbox
3	✨ Why K8E?
4	🏗️ Architecture
5	⚙️ Components
6	🚀 Quick Start
7	🖥️ Installation Guide
8	🔧 Configuration
9	🆚 K8E vs Others
10	🤝 Contributing
11	🙏 Acknowledgments

🤖 What is K8E?

K8E (Kubernetes Easy Engine) is an open-source, enterprise-grade Kubernetes distribution and the foundation for the Agentic AI Sandbox Matrix — a Kubernetes-native platform for running secure, isolated AI agent workloads at scale.

As autonomous AI agents increasingly generate and execute untrusted code, the need for robust sandboxing infrastructure becomes critical. K8E addresses this directly: it ships as a single binary with everything needed to spin up a production-grade Kubernetes cluster in under 60 seconds, with first-class primitives for agent isolation, resource governance, and ephemeral execution environments.

🔒 One cluster. Many agents. Zero trust between them.

K8E is purpose-built for the AI era. The Agentic AI Sandbox Matrix provides Kubernetes-native infrastructure for deploying, isolating, and governing autonomous AI agent workloads.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              AGENTIC AI SANDBOX MATRIX (K8E)                │
│                                                             │
│  ┌──────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  LLM Agent   │───▶│        Sandbox Namespace         │   │
│  │  (any model) │    │                                  │   │
│  └──────────────┘    │  ┌────────────────────────────┐  │   │
│                      │  │      Isolated Pod          │  │   │
│  ┌──────────────┐    │  │  ┌──────────────────────┐  │  │   │
│  │  Tool Use    │───▶│  │  │  Untrusted Code Exec │  │  │   │
│  │  Code/Browse │    │  │  └──────────────────────┘  │  │   │
│  └──────────────┘    │  │  Network Policy            │  │   │
│                      │  │  Resource Quota            │  │   │
│  ┌──────────────┐    │  │  Kata / runc runtime       │  │   │
│  │  Orchestrator│───▶│  └────────────────────────────┘  │   │
│  │  (MCP/A2A)   │    └──────────────────────────────────┘   │
│  └──────────────┘                                           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Deploy an Agent Sandbox

# agent-sandbox.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: agent-sandbox
  labels:
    sandbox: "true"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: ai-agent
  namespace: agent-sandbox
spec:
  containers:
  - name: agent
    image: python:3.11-slim
    resources:
      limits:
        memory: "512Mi"
        cpu: "500m"
    securityContext:
      runAsNonRoot: true
      allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
      readOnlyRootFilesystem: true
  restartPolicy: Never

kubectl apply -f agent-sandbox.yaml

Sandbox Capabilities

Capability	Description
🔒 Hardware Isolation	Kata Containers integration for VM-level agent isolation
🌐 Network Policies	Prevent agent data exfiltration between sandboxes
⚖️ Resource Quotas	Cap compute per agent to prevent runaway costs
🗑️ Ephemeral Workspaces	Auto-cleanup after agent session ends
🧠 Stateful Runtimes	Persistent identity and storage for long-running agents
🤝 agent-sandbox compatible	Works with `kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox`
🔄 MCP / A2A ready	Orchestrate multi-agent pipelines declaratively

✨ Why K8E?

Feature	What it means
🤖 Agentic Sandbox Matrix	Native platform for secure AI agent execution
⚡ 60-second setup	Cluster running before your coffee brews
📦 Single binary < 100MB	Download once, run anywhere
🔒 Security hardened	Enterprise-grade policies built in
🌐 CNCF Conformant	100% standard Kubernetes — no vendor lock-in
🏗️ HA with embedded etcd	Production-grade clustering out of the box
🧩 Cilium networking	eBPF-powered, high-performance networking
💻 Multi-arch	x86_64, ARM64, RISC-V all supported
🔄 Helm controller built-in	GitOps-ready from day one

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        K8E CLUSTER                          │
│                                                             │
│   ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│   │              CONTROL PLANE (Server Node)            │   │
│   │                                                     │   │
│   │  ┌──────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌──────────┐   │   │
│   │  │  API Server  │  │  Scheduler  │  │   etcd   │   │   │
│   │  └──────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └──────────┘   │   │
│   │  ┌──────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────────┐  │   │
│   │  │ Controller Mgr   │  │    Helm Controller       │  │   │
│   │  └──────────────────┘  └─────────────────────────┘  │   │
│   └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
│                          │                                   │
│              ┌───────────┴────────────┐                     │
│   ┌──────────▼──────────┐  ┌──────────▼──────────┐         │
│   │   WORKER NODE 1     │  │   WORKER NODE 2     │         │
│   │  ┌───────────────┐  │  │  ┌───────────────┐  │         │
│   │  │ Agent Sandbox │  │  │  │ Agent Sandbox │  │         │
│   │  └───────────────┘  │  │  └───────────────┘  │         │
│   │  ┌───────────────┐  │  │  ┌───────────────┐  │         │
│   │  │  Containerd   │  │  │  │  Containerd   │  │         │
│   │  └───────────────┘  │  │  └───────────────┘  │         │
│   │  ┌───────────────┐  │  │  ┌───────────────┐  │         │
│   │  │ Cilium (CNI)  │  │  │  │ Cilium (CNI)  │  │         │
│   │  └───────────────┘  │  │  └───────────────┘  │         │
│   └─────────────────────┘  └─────────────────────┘         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

⚙️ Components

Component	Version	Purpose
☸️ Kubernetes	v1.35.x	Core orchestration engine
🔷 Cilium	Latest	eBPF networking & network policy enforcement
📦 Containerd	v1.7.x	Container runtime
🔑 etcd	v3.5.x	Distributed key-value store
🌐 CoreDNS	v1.11.x	Cluster DNS
⚓ Helm Controller	v0.16.x	GitOps & chart management
📈 Metrics Server	v0.7.x	Resource metrics
💾 Local Path Provisioner	v0.0.30	Persistent storage
🔧 Kine	v0.13.x	etcd shim for SQLite/MySQL
🛡️ Runc / Kata	v1.2.x	OCI & hardware-isolated runtimes

🚀 Quick Start

Step 1 — Install K8E Server

curl -sfL https://k8e.sh/install.sh | sh -

Step 2 — Verify

export KUBECONFIG=/etc/k8e/k8e.yaml
kubectl get nodes

Step 3 — Add a Worker Node (Optional)

# Get token from server
cat /var/lib/k8e/server/node-token

# On worker machine
curl -sfL https://k8e.sh/install.sh | \
  K8E_TOKEN=<token> \
  K8E_URL=https://<server-ip>:6443 \
  INSTALL_K8E_EXEC="agent" \
  sh -

🖥️ Installation Guide

🐧 Linux

# Server
curl -sfL https://k8e.sh/install.sh | sh -

# Agent
curl -sfL https://k8e.sh/install.sh | \
  K8E_TOKEN=ilovek8e \
  K8E_URL=https://<SERVER_IP>:6443 \
  INSTALL_K8E_EXEC="agent" \
  sh -

🐳 Docker / Dev Mode

docker run -d --privileged \
  -p 6443:6443 \
  --name k8e-dev \
  xiaods/k8e:latest server --cluster-init

✅ Verify

kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl get pods -n kube-system
cilium status

🔧 Configuration

Environment Variables

# Server
K8E_TOKEN=<secret>
K8E_KUBECONFIG_OUTPUT=<path>
K8E_KUBECONFIG_MODE=644

# Agent
K8E_URL=https://<server>:6443
K8E_TOKEN=<secret>

Systemd

systemctl status k8e
journalctl -u k8e -f
systemctl restart k8e

🆚 K8E vs The Alternatives

Feature	K8E 🚀	K3s	K8s (vanilla)	MicroK8s
Install time	~60s	~90s	~20min	~5min
Binary size	<100MB	~70MB	~1GB+	~200MB
Agentic Sandbox	✅ Native	❌ No	⚠️ Manual	❌ No
eBPF networking	✅ Cilium	⚠️ Optional	⚠️ Optional	❌ No
Enterprise hardened	✅ Yes	⚠️ Partial	✅ Yes	⚠️ Partial
HA embedded etcd	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	⚠️ Limited
CNCF conformant	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Multi-arch	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes

🤝 Contributing

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/k8e.git && cd k8e
git checkout -b feat/my-feature
make
make test
git push origin feat/my-feature

🛡️ Security

Report vulnerabilities via GitHub Security Advisories. Do not open public issues for security bugs.

📄 License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Project	Contribution
🐄 K3s	Lightweight Kubernetes foundation that inspired K8E
☸️ Kubernetes	The orchestration engine everything is built on
🔷 Cilium	eBPF-powered networking and security
🤖 agent-sandbox	Kubernetes-native agent sandboxing primitives
🌐 CNCF	Fostering the open-source cloud native ecosystem

k8e.sh — Open Source Agentic AI Sandbox Matrix

If K8E powers your agents, give us a ⭐ — it means the world to us!