Google open-sources AX, its agent runtime that ditches etcd for Redis to manage millions of short-lived tasks

outlawent21 · reddit · 2026-10-03

Google has open-sourced AX, an agent runtime built on Agent Substrate. The notable design choice: instead of pushing millions of short-lived agent tasks through Kubernetes and etcd, AX stores state in Redis and reconciles directly with Agent Substrate. The author reads this as an admission that etcd — designed for long-lived control-plane services — is a poor fit for the churn of massive short-lived agent tasks, and notes the same 'where does agent state live' question shows up even in small personal multi-agent setups.

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Google open-sources AX, its agent runtime that ditches etcd for Redis to manage millions of short-lived tasks

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