Extension Fundamentals

Goal

You will understand how an extension participates in the kongctl command tree and what permissions it receives.

What is an extension?

An extension is an external executable that contributes one or more command paths to kongctl. For example, an extension could add:

kongctl get debug-info

kongctl installs, links, upgrades, and removes extensions. When an extension command runs, its executable starts as a separate child process.

Inspect installed extensions

List the extensions currently available:

kongctl list extensions

An empty list is valid when no extensions are installed.

Inspect one extension by its manifest identity:

kongctl get extension <publisher>/<name>

Replace <publisher> and <name> with values from the installed extension list.

Understand the trust boundary

Extensions are executable code

Install and run only extensions whose source and release artifacts you trust.

Extensions are not isolated sandboxes. They run with your operating-system permissions and can make Konnect requests with the profile and credentials available to the parent kongctl command.