Ikanos¶
Ikanos is the open source capability engine for Spec-Driven Integration.
Ikanos comes from the Greek "ικανός" — capable.
It reads a Naftiko YAML specification at startup and immediately serves it as a multi-protocol server — MCP, Skill, REST — with no code generation or compilation step.
Each capability is a coarse piece of domain that consumes existing HTTP endpoints then exposes them in several protocols to enable AI integration and self-integrating agents. Ikanos includes a specification, an engine and a CLI.
In one sentence¶
Ikanos reads one YAML file describing a slice of your business — say customers or orders — connects it to the HTTP/REST APIs you already have, and instantly serves that same slice to AI agents, web apps, and partners over several protocols at once. One source of truth, many audiences, no code to write or compile.
What that means for you depends on what you're building:
You're building AI agents — give agents governed MCP tools without writing handlers, and send the model exactly the context a task needs. → Context engineering tutorial
You own a sprawl of APIs, microservices, or a monolith — put a clean, governed contract in front of messy or legacy endpoints. → API reusability tutorial
You want one source of truth for every client — write the domain once and serve it as REST, MCP, and Skill from the same spec. → Use cases
See Who is it for? for the full persona map.
Key features at a glance¶
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Spec-Driven Integration | Declare capabilities entirely in YAML — no Java required |
| Multi-Protocol Servers | Expose capabilities via MCP, Skill, REST, or Control |
| Data Format Conversion | Protobuf, XML, YAML, CSV, TSV, PSV, Avro, HTML, Markdown → JSON |
| HTTP API Consumption | Bearer, API key, basic, digest, OAuth 2.1 auth out of the box |
| Templating & Querying | Mustache templates and JSONPath expressions for flexible data mapping |
| Inline Scripting | Sandboxed JavaScript, Python, or Groovy steps via GraalVM |
| Domain-Driven Aggregates | Define reusable functions once, reference from multiple adapters |
| OpenAPI Interoperability | Import Swagger 2.0, OAS 3.0/3.1; export REST adapters as OpenAPI |
| Cloud-Native Operations | OTel tracing, RED metrics, Prometheus scrape, single Docker image |
| AI Native | Designed for context engineering and agent orchestration |
For the full feature list see Features.
What it is not¶
- Not a code generator. No source files are produced. The spec is the artifact and the runtime contract.
- Not a workflow engine. Multi-step orchestration is supported, but long-running workflows, schedules, and durable state are out of scope.
- Not a service mesh. Ikanos focuses on the application contract; mesh features (mTLS between services, traffic shifting) live below it.
Continue reading¶
- Installation — install via Docker or native binary
- Use Cases — typical integration scenarios
- Schema — the full reference for every keyword
- Linting Guide — pair Ikanos with Polychro
- Roadmap — what's coming in upcoming alphas