Inflight Documentation

Inflight Agent

Zero-touch service discovery

The Inflight Agent is the bridge between your services and the Inflight platform. Running as a lightweight sidecar, it automatically discovers your runtime configurations and registers your services—eliminating manual setup and ensuring your optimization recommendations are always based on accurate, real-time data.

Why the Agent Matters

Traditional optimization tools require manual configuration that quickly becomes outdated. The Inflight Agent solves this by continuously discovering your actual runtime state.

~5MB

Ultra-Lightweight

Minimal resource footprint that won't impact your application performance

0

Zero APM Dependencies

No credentials needed in your pods—all APM interactions happen centrally

100%

Auto-Discovery

Automatically detects runtime configurations without manual setup

The Configuration Drift Problem

When optimizing JVM or Go applications, accurate configuration data is critical. But in dynamic Kubernetes environments, configurations change constantly:

Without the Agent

  • Manual configuration that becomes stale
  • Optimization based on outdated assumptions
  • Missed configuration changes after deployments
  • Inconsistent data across environments

With the Agent

  • Always-current configuration data
  • Recommendations based on actual state
  • Automatic detection of configuration changes
  • Consistent visibility across all environments

Automatic Configuration Discovery

The agent automatically extracts the configuration details that matter most for optimization—without requiring any manual setup or maintenance.

JVM Configuration Detection

Automatically discovers garbage collector settings, heap sizes, metaspace configuration, thread stack sizes, and JVM flags—no manual configuration required.

GC Algorithm (G1, ZGC, Shenandoah)Heap sizes (initial & max)GC tuning parametersContainer-aware settings

Go Configuration Detection

Extracts Go runtime settings including garbage collection targets, memory limits, and processor allocation from your environment.

GOGC target percentageGOMEMLIMIT settingsGOMAXPROCS allocationDebug flags

Kubernetes Resource Discovery

Reads your pod specifications to understand CPU and memory requests/limits, enabling accurate capacity planning and optimization recommendations.

CPU requests & limitsMemory requests & limitsContainer selectionNamespace context

Intelligent Lease Management

Maintains service registrations with smart heartbeat intervals that adapt to your environment. Detects configuration changes and updates automatically.

Adaptive heartbeat intervalsChange detectionGraceful expiry handlingTier-based TTLs

How It Works

The agent follows a simple, secure pattern that keeps sensitive credentials out of your application pods.

Your Service
JVM / Go / Node.js
Inflight Agent
Discovers & Registers
Metrics Collector
Stores & Normalizes
The agent discovers your configuration and registers with the Metrics Collector. All APM credentials and integrations are handled centrally—your pods never need direct access to monitoring systems.

Security-First Design

The agent is designed with security as a primary concern, minimizing the attack surface and keeping sensitive credentials centralized.

No APM Credentials

APM API keys stay in the Collector, not scattered across pods

Read-Only Access

Only reads pod specs—never modifies your running applications

Minimal Footprint

~5MB binary with no external dependencies to audit

Supported Runtimes

The agent provides deep configuration discovery for these runtime environments:

Java / JVM

Complete visibility into JVM configuration including garbage collector selection, heap sizing, metaspace, and all tuning parameters.

G1GC, ZGC, Shenandoah, Parallel GC
Heap, Metaspace, Direct Memory
Container-aware JVM settings

Go

Automatic detection of Go runtime environment variables that control garbage collection, memory limits, and processor allocation.

GOGC target percentage
GOMEMLIMIT configuration
GOMAXPROCS settings

Coming soon: Node.js, Python, .NET, and Rust runtime detection for comprehensive polyglot support.

Ready to Get Started?

Deploy the Inflight Agent as a sidecar and start getting optimization recommendations based on your actual runtime configuration.