Glossary

Here is where you will find definitions for common terminology used across Krustlet.

Kubelet

The kubelet is a key piece of the Kubernetes architecture. A kubelet is a “node agent” that runs on each node in a Kubernetes cluster. It registers as a node with the Kubernetes API, waiting for new pods provided by the API, and ensures the workloads in those pods are running and healthy.

Pod

A pod is the simplest execution unit in Kubernetes that you can create and destroy using the Kubernetes API. Nearly every workload type available in Kubernetes (Deployments, StatefulSets, DaemonSets, Jobs, etc.) uses pods as the basic unit of work. In other words, a pod represents a single unit of work in your cluster.

Provider

A provider is an abstract interface within Krustlet. Providers describe the verbs and actions a WebAssembly runtime (like wasmtime) must provide in order for that runtime to work as a kubelet.

The primary responsibility of a provider is to execute a workload (or schedule it on an external executor), monitor that workload, and expose important details back to Kubernetes using the Kubelet API.

See also the topic guide on providers.