The Endpoint Picker, or EPP, is a core component of the inference extension. Ultimately it's
responsible for picking an endpoint from the InferencePool
. A reference implementation can be
found here.
This doc defines the protocol between the EPP and the proxy (e.g, Envoy).
The EPP MUST implement the Envoy external processing service protocol.
For each HTTP request, the proxy CAN communicate the subset of endpoints the EPP MUST pick from by setting an unstructured entry in the filter metadata field of the ext-proc request. The metadata entry for the subset list MUST be wrapped with an outer key (which represents the metadata namespace) with a default of envoy.lb.subset_hint
.
filterMetadata: {
"envoy.lb.subset_hint" {
"x-gateway-destination-endpoint-subset": [<ip:port>, <ip:port>, ...]
}
}
If the key x-gateway-destination-endpoint-subset
is set, the EPP MUST only select endpoints from the specified list. If none of the endpoints in the list is eligible or the list is empty, then the EPP MUST return a ImmediateResponse with 503 (Service Unavailable) HTTP status code. If the EPP does not select from the list, then this leads to unpredictable behavior.
If the key x-gateway-destination-endpoint-subset
is not set, then the EPP MUST select from the set defined by the InferencePool
selector.
For each HTTP request, the EPP MUST communicate to the proxy the picked model server endpoint via:
-
Setting the
x-gateway-destination-endpoint
HTTP header to the selected endpoint in ip:port format. -
Set an unstructured entry in the dynamic_metadata field of the ext-proc response. The metadata entry for the picked endpoint MUST be wrapped with an outer key (which represents the metadata namespace) with a default of
envoy.lb
.
The primary endpoint MUST be set using the key x-gateway-destination-endpoint
as follows:
dynamicMetadata: {
"envoy.lb": {
"x-gateway-destination-endpoint": <ip:port>
}
}
Constraints:
- If the EPP did not communicate the server endpoint via these two methods, it MUST return an error as follows:
- ImmediateResponse with 503 (Serivce Unavailable) HTTP status code if there are no ready endpoints.
- ImmediateResponse with 429 (Too Many Requests) HTTP status code if the request should be dropped (e.g., a Sheddable request, and the servers under heavy load).
- The EPP MUST not set two different values in the header and the inner response metadata value.
- Setting different value leads to unpredictable behavior because proxies aren't guaranteed to support both paths, and so this protocol does not define what takes precedence.
A single fallback endpoint CAN be set using the key x-gateway-destination-endpoint-fallback
in the same metadata namespace as one used for x-gateway-destination-endpoint
as follows:
dynamicMetadata: {
"envoy.lb" {
"x-gateway-destination-endpoint-fallback": <ip:port>
}
}
The envoy.lb
namespace is a predefined namespace. One common way to use the selected endpoint returned from the server, is envoy subsets where host metadata for subset load balancing must be placed under envoy.lb
. Note that this is not related to the subsetting feature discussed above, this is an enovy implementation detail.
The model name of a request MUST match the Spec.ModelName
parameter of one of the InferenceModels
referencing the InferencePool
managed by the EPP. Otherwise, the EPP MUST return a 404 status code.