GITER: A Git-Based Declarative Exchange Model Using Kubernetes-Style Custom Resources
Christos Tranoris
TL;DR
The paper introduces GITER, a GitOps-native pattern for declarative, bidirectional inter-entity communication using a shared Git repository and Kubernetes-style Custom Resources. By splitting state into spec (desired) and status (observed) and enforcing separate ownership for producers and consumers, it achieves auditable, asynchronous coordination suitable for air-gapped and cross-domain scenarios. It discusses architectural principles, implementation considerations, and a comparative view against RESTful and broker-based integrations, highlighting benefits like offline operation, reproducibility, and security, along with trade-offs in latency and scalability. The approach provides a lightweight, transparent alternative for cross-organizational automation, distributed experiments, and edge/embedded deployments, while clearly outlining limitations and extension paths such as event-driven triggers and multi-party topologies.
Abstract
This paper introduces a lightweight and auditable method for asynchronous information exchange between distributed entities using Git as the coordination medium. The proposed approach replaces traditional APIs and message brokers with a Git-based communication model built on the principles of Kubernetes Operators and Custom Resources (CRs). Each participating entity, designated as a Publisher or Consumer, interacts through a shared repository that serves as a single source of truth, where the spec field captures the desired state and the status field reflects the observed outcome. This pattern extends GitOps beyond infrastructure management to support cross-domain, inter-organizational, and air-gapped collaboration scenarios. By leveraging Git native features (versioning, commit signing, and access control) the model ensures transparency, traceability, and reproducibility while preserving loose coupling and autonomy between systems. The paper discusses architectural principles, implementation considerations, and comparisons with RESTful and broker-based integrations, highlighting both the advantages and trade-offs of adopting Git as a declarative communication substrate.