Kong has announced the early access release of its Konnect CRDs with the konnect.konghq.com/v1alpha1 apiVersion, allowing users to configure and manage Konnect Gateway control planes and their entities within the Kubernetes ecosystem. This development aligns with the strategic role of Kubernetes in declarative configuration, utilizing Kubernetes RBAC for governance and ReferenceGrant for conditional access. The new features, which are being gradually expanded, initially focus on managing Gateway entities like KongService and KongRoute, with plans to support Ingress and HTTPRoute in the future. Users can begin using these capabilities by installing Kong Gateway Operator 1.4, available in November, and configuring authentication credentials to create control planes and services in Konnect. The company is actively seeking user feedback through GitHub discussions to refine the CRD design further.