# servicemeshinterface/smi-spec

Service Mesh Interface

Repository: https://github.com/servicemeshinterface/smi-spec
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/smi-spec
Homepage: https://smi-spec.io
Language: Makefile
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: service-mesh, cncf, servicemesh, smi
Archived: true
Last push: 2023-10-20T15:39:55+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2720, "days_push": 1048, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1059, forks 129 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:25.403327+00:00)

## What it is
Service Mesh Interface (SMI) is a CNCF specification defining a standard, provider-agnostic set of Kubernetes CRD-based APIs for service mesh capabilities such as traffic access control, traffic metrics, traffic specs, and traffic splitting. The project was archived by CNCF in October 2023, with its focus shifted toward the Gateway API GAMMA initiative.

## Use cases
- standardize service mesh APIs across Kubernetes clusters
- split traffic between services for canary deployments
- define traffic access control policies for mesh services
- capture inter-service metrics like error rate and latency
- build mesh-agnostic applications not tied to a specific service mesh implementation

## When to choose
- you need a portable, provider-agnostic service mesh API on Kubernetes
- you maintain tooling that must support multiple service meshes (Istio, Linkerd, Consul, Traefik Mesh)
- you want a simple spec for traffic splitting and access control

## When to avoid
- starting a new project - the spec is archived and no longer maintained
- you need actively developed service mesh standards - consider Kubernetes Gateway API / GAMMA instead
- you need a runnable service mesh rather than a specification

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: abandoned
- function: microservices, api-gateway, monitoring, configuration-management
- domain: microservices, cloud-computing, networking
- platform: cloud, self-hosted
- tags: service-mesh, specification, cncf, crds, traffic-management, archived-project, traffic-split, traffic-policy, containers, devops, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- servicemeshinterface/smi-spec (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:25.403327+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:57:22.191837+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/servicemeshinterface/smi-spec (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:25.403327+00:00, sha 1ea0da7d18fb)
  - homepage: https://smi-spec.io (fetched 2026-08-29T12:59:04.771353+00:00, sha 1fd73fab87be)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.