GITER: A Git-Based Declarative Exchange Model Using Kubernetes-Style Custom Resources

TL;DR

This paper presents GITER, a novel Git-based asynchronous communication model inspired by Kubernetes, enabling transparent, auditable, and loosely coupled interactions between distributed entities beyond traditional APIs.

Contribution

It introduces a lightweight, declarative exchange model using Git and Kubernetes principles, extending GitOps to cross-domain and inter-organizational collaboration scenarios.

Findings

Supports asynchronous, auditable communication between distributed entities.

Offers transparency, traceability, and reproducibility through Git features.

Provides a comparison with RESTful and broker-based integration methods.

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.