Agentic Networking Quickstart¶

Want to see policy changes in action? Let's flip the script for the local-mcp-backend!

1. Edit the XAccessPolicy: Open quickstart/policy/e2e.yaml and modify the auth-policy-local-mcp resource to:
2. Remove the "get-sum" tool.
3. Add the "echo" tool.

Your auth-policy-local-mcp section should look like this:

apiVersion: agentic.prototype.x-k8s.io/v0alpha0
kind: XAccessPolicy
metadata:
  name: auth-policy-local-mcp
  namespace: quickstart-ns
spec:
  targetRefs:
    - kind: XBackend
      name: local-mcp-backend
  rules:
    - name: updated-rule
      source:
        type: ServiceAccount
        serviceAccount:
          name: adk-agent-sa
      authorization:
        type: InlineTools
        tools:
          - "get-tiny-image"
          - "echo" # Now allowed!

1. Apply the updated policy:

kubectl apply -n quickstart-ns -f quickstart/policy/e2e.yaml

1. Wait for the controller to update Envoy: The Agentic Networking controller will detect the change to the XAccessPolicy and dynamically update the running Envoy proxy with the new rules via xDS. No restart is needed!

2. Interact with the Agent again: Go back to http://localhost:8081 and try these prompts:

   Prompt	Tool Invoked	Expected Result	Why?
   What is the sum of 2 and 3?	get-sum on local MCP	❌ Failure	The get-sum tool is now disallowed by the updated XAccessPolicy.
   Echo back 'hello'.	echo on local MCP	✅ Success	The echo tool is now allowed by the updated XAccessPolicy.

Observe how the agent's behavior changes instantly based on your policy modifications!

The quickstart script already deployed the sample ADK agent with a fully configured Envoy sidecar. The steps below are only needed if you want to integrate a different agent of your own into the Agentic Networking infrastructure.

Prerequisites

• You have completed the quickstart (the kind cluster, controller, and Gateway are running)
• Your agent deployment, service, and MCP tools are running
• Your agent can communicate with MCP tool servers

Step 1: Ensure your agent has a ServiceAccount

The mTLS identity system issues SPIFFE certificates based on the pod's ServiceAccount. The resulting identity will be spiffe://cluster.local/ns/<namespace>/sa/<service-account>, which is used for RBAC policy matching.

If your agent already has a ServiceAccount, note its name. Otherwise, create one and update your deployment:

kubectl create serviceaccount <agent-sa> -n <agent-namespace>
kubectl set serviceaccount deployment/<agent-deployment> <agent-sa> -n <agent-namespace>

Step 2: Define or update access policies

Update XBackend, XAccessPolicy, and HTTPRoute resources to reference your agent's ServiceAccount and tool endpoints (see the quickstart/policy/e2e.yaml file for examples):

kubectl apply -f <policy-file>.yaml

Step 3: Create the Envoy sidecar ConfigMap

The Envoy sidecar needs a ConfigMap with its bootstrap and SDS configurations for mTLS. Use the template at quickstart/adk-agent/sidecar/sidecar-configs.yaml:

1. Copy the template and update metadata.namespace to your agent's namespace:

   cp quickstart/adk-agent/sidecar/sidecar-configs.yaml <your-sidecar-configs>.yaml
   

2. Discover the Gateway address and identity, then render and apply:

   export GATEWAY_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get gateway agentic-net-gateway -n <gateway-namespace> -o jsonpath='{.status.addresses[0].value}')
   export GATEWAY_SA=$(kubectl get sa -n <gateway-namespace> --no-headers -o custom-columns=":metadata.name" | grep "envoy-proxy-" | head -n 1)
   export GATEWAY_SPIFFE_ID="spiffe://cluster.local/ns/<gateway-namespace>/sa/${GATEWAY_SA}"
   envsubst < <your-sidecar-configs>.yaml | kubectl apply -f -
   

Step 4: Add the Envoy sidecar to your agent deployment

Add an envoy sidecar container to your Deployment spec with the envoy-sidecar-configs and agent-identity-mtls volumes. The envoy-sidecar-configs tells Envoy how to connect, and agent-identity-mtls gives it the credentials to authenticate (see the ADK agent deployment for reference). Add --disable-hot-restart to the Envoy args if the hot restart socket conflicts in your environment.

Note: The ADK agent deployment also includes a proxy-init init container with iptables rules. This is not required — the Envoy sidecar already listens on port 10001 within the pod, so 127.0.0.1:10001 reaches it directly. Omitting it avoids the NET_ADMIN capability requirement and speeds up pod startup.

Step 5: Configure your agent to route through Envoy

Update your agent's tool endpoint to use the local Envoy sidecar. Use plain HTTP (not HTTPS) — the sidecar handles mTLS to the Gateway transparently:

kubectl set env deployment/<agent-deployment> \
  TOOL_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:10001/<route-path> \
  -n <agent-namespace>

The exact configuration method depends on how your agent connects to MCP tools.