Skipper — FAQ¶

Is Skipper a service mesh?¶

No. Skipper integrates with service meshes (Linkerd, Istio, Consul) or falls back to a built-in router when no mesh is present. It is the fleet operator that knows about capabilities and Naftiko semantics; the mesh remains the transport plane.

Is it Kubernetes-only?¶

The Kubernetes operator is the primary deployment. A non-K8s mode for Docker Swarm / Nomad / plain Docker Compose is planned post-1.0.

How does it differ from Argo Rollouts / Flagger?¶

Skipper uses progressive-delivery primitives (and integrates with Argo Rollouts) for the rollout layer, but adds Naftiko-aware features: capability-level health, MCP tool inventory, cross-capability tracing, Warden bundle distribution. It's the fleet brain, not the rollout engine.

Do I need Skipper if I only run one capability?¶

No. A single capability is fine on plain Docker / K8s / a single Ikanos process. Skipper earns its place once you have a fleet — multiple capabilities, environments, and lifecycles to coordinate.

How does GitOps work?¶

The fleet manifest (naftiko.fleet.yaml) is the source of truth. Argo CD or Flux reconciles it into the Skipper operator. The operator then drives Kubernetes resources, Warden bundles, and routing config.

How is observability distributed?¶

Each capability runs a Control adapter exposing health, metrics, and traces. Skipper aggregates these into a fleet dashboard. Traces are correlated across capability boundaries via standard W3C TraceContext propagation.

How is it licensed?¶

Skipper ships in every edition of the Naftiko Fleet. The Community baseline (single-host orchestration via local fleet manifest) is distributed under the Naftiko Fleet Freeware EULA — free for personal and internal business use. Standard premium features (multi-host orchestration, team dashboards) are per-seat. Enterprise premium features (multi-region routing, fleet placement, blue/green & canary, SLA-grade observability) are per-instance with SLA terms under the Naftiko Commercial License. See Fleet → License.

When will it ship?¶

See Roadmap. v0.1 preview is post-Ikanos GA, alongside Warden.