Review Project Moving Level Evaluation

• I have reviewed the TOC's moving level readiness triage guide, ensured the criteria for my project are met before opening this issue, and understand that unmet criteria will result in the project's application being closed.

k0s Incubation Application

v1.6
This template provides the project with a framework to inform the TOC of their conformance to the Incubation Level Criteria.

Project Repo(s): https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s
Project Site: https://k0sproject.io/
Sub-Projects:

• k0smotron: https://github.com/k0sproject/k0smotron
• k0sctl: https://github.com/k0sproject/k0sctl

Communication:
#k0s-users: https://kubernetes.slack.com/archives/C0809EA06QZ
#k0s-dev: https://kubernetes.slack.com/archives/C07VAPJUECS

Project points of contacts:

• Jussi Nummelin, jnummelin@mirantis.com
• Tom Wieczorek, twieczorek@mirantis.com
• Juan Luis de Sousa-Valadas, jvaladas@mirantis.com
• Alexey Makhov, amakhov@mirantis.com
• Natanael Copa, ncopa@mirantis.com
• Prithvi Raj, rajprithvi1307@gmail.com
• Ethan Mosbaugh, ethan@replicated.com

Incubation Criteria Summary for k0s

Application Level Assertion

• This project is currently Sandbox, accepted on 2025-01-21, and applying to Incubation.
• This project is applying to join the CNCF at the Incubation level.

Adoption Assertion

The project has been adopted by the following organizations in a testing and integration or production capacity:

• https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/ADOPTERS.md

Application Process Principles

Suggested

N/A

Required

• Engage with the domain specific TAG(s) to increase awareness through a presentation or completing a General Technical Review.

We will go to CNCF TAG Workloads Foundation to present k0s in their TAG meeting after KubeCon NA.

• All project metadata and resources are vendor-neutral.

• Review and acknowledgement of expectations for Sandbox projects and requirements for moving forward through the CNCF Maturity levels.

• Met during Project's application on 21-01-2025.

• Due Diligence Review.

Completion of this due diligence document, resolution of concerns raised, and presented for public comment satisfies the Due Diligence Review criteria.

• Additional documentation as appropriate for project type, e.g.: installation documentation, end user documentation, reference implementation and/or code samples.

• Docs: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/

• Installation Guide: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/install/

• Version Upgrade: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/upgrade/

• Extensions: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/metallb-loadbalancer/

• Architecture: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/architecture/

• Release & Support: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/releases/

Governance and Maintainers

Note: this section may be augmented by the completion of a Governance Review from the Project Reviews subproject.

Suggested

• Governance has continuously been iterated upon by the project as a result of their experience applying it, with the governance history demonstrating evolution of maturity alongside the project's maturity evolution.

k0s Governance Document

• Clear and discoverable project governance documentation.

k0s Governance Document

• Governance is up to date with actual project activities, including any meetings, elections, leadership, or approval processes.

k0s Governance Document

• Governance clearly documents vendor-neutrality of project direction.

k0s Vendor Neutrality Documented

• Document how the project makes decisions on leadership, contribution acceptance, requests to the CNCF, and changes to governance or project goals.

k0s Maintainership
Contributing to k0s

• Document how role, function-based members, or sub-teams are assigned, onboarded, and removed for specific teams (example: Security Response Committee).

k0s Project Roles

• Document a complete maintainer lifecycle process (including roles, onboarding, offboarding, and emeritus status).

k0s Maintainership

• Demonstrate usage of the maintainer lifecycle with outcomes, either through the addition or replacement of maintainers as project events have required.

• If the project has subprojects: subproject leadership, contribution, maturity status documented, including add/remove process.

Required

• Document complete list of current maintainers, including names, contact information, domain of responsibility, and affiliation.

k0s Maintainers

• A number of active maintainers which is appropriate to the size and scope of the project.

k0s currently has 8 Active Maintainers managing the project.
k0s Maintainers

• Code and Doc ownership in Github and elsewhere matches documented governance roles.

• Document adoption and adherence to the CNCF Code of Conduct or the project's CoC which is based off the CNCF CoC and not in conflict with it.

https://github.com/k0sproject/community/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

• CNCF Code of Conduct is cross-linked from other governance documents.

https://github.com/k0sproject/community/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

• All subprojects, if any, are listed.

All k0s subprojects are listed at https://github.com/k0sproject

Contributors and Community

Note: this section may be augmented by the completion of a Governance Review from the Project Reviews subproject.

Suggested

• Contributor ladder with multiple roles for contributors.

Required

• Clearly defined and discoverable process to submit issues or changes.

k0s follows the typical contribution process which is documented in https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

• Project must have, and document, at least one public communications channel for users and/or contributors.

• #k0s-dev on k8s slack for contributors and maintainers

• #k0s-users for any k0s user

• List and document all project communication channels, including subprojects (mail list/slack/etc.). List any non-public communications channels and what their special purpose is.

• #k0s-dev on k8s slack for contributors and maintainers

• #k0s-users for any k0s user

• k0s Twitter

In case of non-public discussions, such as CoC violation etc. events, are needed, maintainers can form a private discussion forum via email and/or calls to discuss. The results of these discussions will be made public to the community via public comms channels.

• Up-to-date public meeting schedulers and/or integration with CNCF calendar.

Community Invite
Meeting Notes

• Documentation of how to contribute, with increasing detail as the project matures.

k0s Contributors Guide

• Demonstrate contributor activity and recruitment.

k0s Contributors
k0smotron Contributors

At KubeCon NA we ran a ContribFest session to attract new contributors. #k0s-dev channel has also indication of people exploring options how to contribute. As an example, the k0s 1.34 release had 16 different contributors.

Engineering Principles

Suggested

• Roadmap change process is documented.

https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/ROADMAP.md

• History of regular, quality releases.

k0s Releases

Required

• Document project goals and objectives that illustrate the project’s differentiation in the Cloud Native landscape as well as outlines how this project fulfills an outstanding need and/or solves a problem differently. This can also be satisfied by completing a General Technical Review.
• If applicable a General Technical Review was completed/updated on 13-01-2025, and can be discovered at https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/docs/governance/cncf/gtr.md

Docs: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/

• Document what the project does, and why it does it - including viable cloud native use cases. This can also be satisfied by completing a General Technical Review.

Docs: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/
General Technical Review: https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/docs/governance/cncf/gtr.md

• Document and maintain a public roadmap or other forward looking planning document or tracking mechanism.

k0s Roadmap

• Document overview of project architecture and software design that demonstrates viable cloud native use cases, as part of the project's documentation. This can also be satisfied by completing a General Technical Review and capturing the output in the project's documentation.

  • If applicable a General Technical Review was completed/updated on 13-01-2025, and can be discovered at https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/docs/governance/cncf/gtr.md

• Document the project's release process.

Release Process: https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/RELEASE.md
Release Notes: https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/releases

Security

Suggested

N/A

Required

Note: this section may be augmented by a joint-assessment performed by TAG Security and Compliance.

• Clearly defined and discoverable process to report security issues.

k0s Security Policy

• Enforcing Access Control Rules to secure the code base against attacks (Example: two factor authentication enforcement, and/or use of ACL tools.)

All the Committers have 2FA enabled

• Document assignment of security response roles and how reports are handled.

[k0s Security Doc] (https://github.com/k0sproject/k0s/blob/main/SECURITY.md)
The security team is made up of the k0s project maintainers who are willing and able to respond to vulnerability reports.

• Document Security Self-Assessment.

k0s Self Security Assessment Documented

• Achieve the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Best Practices passing badge.

OpenSSF Best Practices Passing Badge for k0s

Ecosystem

Suggested

N/A

Required

• Publicly documented list of adopters, which may indicate their adoption level (dev/trialing, prod, etc.)

k0s Adopters

• Used in appropriate capacity by at least 3 independent + indirect/direct adopters, (these are not required to be in the publicly documented list of adopters)

The project provided the TOC with a list of adopters for verification of use of the project at the level expected, i.e. production use for graduation, dev/test for incubation.

• TOC verification of adopters.

• Clearly documented integrations and/or compatibility with other CNCF projects as well as non-CNCF projects.

• Metallb: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/metallb-loadbalancer/

• Nginx Ingress Controller: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/nginx-ingress/

• Traefik Ingress Controller: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/traefik-ingress/

• Ceph Storage with Rook: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/rook-ceph/

• OpenEBS: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/openebs/

• Flux: https://docs.k0sproject.io/stable/examples/gitops-flux/

• Kairos: https://kairos.io/blog/2025/04/02/kairos-meets-k0s-a-meta-distribution-for-kubernetes-is-born/

• Replicated: https://docs.replicated.com/vendor/embedded-troubleshooting#view-k0s-logs

Additional Information