KServe: perform a canary rollout by splitting traffic between two InferenceService revisions
domain: ml-ops · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Deploy the first InferenceService revision normally; it receives 100% of traffic and KServe tracks it as the last good (LatestRolledoutRevision).
Update the InferenceService spec with the new model version (e.g. a new storageUri) and set canaryTrafficPercent on the component, e.g. `canaryTrafficPercent: 10`, to send that percentage of traffic to the new revision.
Re-apply the manifest with `kubectl apply`; KServe automatically splits traffic between the previously-promoted revision and the newly rolling-out revision according to canaryTrafficPercent.
To promote the canary, remove the canaryTrafficPercent field and re-apply — the new revision becomes the LatestRolledoutRevision and takes 100% of traffic.
To roll back, set canaryTrafficPercent to 0 (or re-apply the previous good spec) so 100% of traffic is pinned back to the PreviousRolledoutRevision.
Optionally add the serving.kserve.io/enable-tag-routing annotation to get tag-based URLs so you can explicitly hit the canary or the stable revision instead of relying only on the percentage split.
Known gotchas
Canary rollout strategy is only supported in KServe's serverless deployment mode, not RawDeployment mode.
KServe automatically avoids routing traffic to an unhealthy/bad revision, so a broken canary won't actually receive its configured percentage even if canaryTrafficPercent is set.
canaryTrafficPercent is the share sent to the new revision; the remainder goes to the last known-good (LatestRolledoutRevision), not to some notion of 'all other revisions'.
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