# Istio Traffic Management

Configure Istio traffic management including routing, load balancing, circuit breakers...

- Repository: https://github.com/wshobson/agents (42077 stars)
- Category: Engineering
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-30
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill istio-traffic-management -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill istio-traffic-management -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill istio-traffic-management -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill istio-traffic-management -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add wshobson/agents`

## Description

Configure Istio traffic management including routing, load balancing, circuit breakers, and canary deployments. Use when implementing service mesh traffic policies, progressive delivery, or resilience patterns.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Istio Traffic Management

Comprehensive guide to Istio traffic management for production service mesh deployments.

## When to Use This Skill

- Configuring service-to-service routing
- Implementing canary or blue-green deployments
- Setting up circuit breakers and retries
- Load balancing configuration
- Traffic mirroring for testing
- Fault injection for chaos engineering

## Core Concepts

### 1. Traffic Management Resources

| Resource            | Purpose                       | Scope         |
| ------------------- | ----------------------------- | ------------- |
| **VirtualService**  | Route traffic to destinations | Host-based    |
| **DestinationRule** | Define policies after routing | Service-based |
| **Gateway**         | Configure ingress/egress      | Cluster edge  |
| **ServiceEntry**    | Add external services         | Mesh-wide     |

### 2. Traffic Flow

```
Client → Gateway → VirtualService → DestinationRule → Service
                   (routing)        (policies)        (pods)
```

## Templates

### Template 1: Basic Routing

```yaml
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
  name: reviews-route
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  hosts:
    - reviews
  http:
    - match:
        - headers:
            end-user:
              exact: jason
      route:
        - destination:
            host: reviews
            subset: v2
    - route:
        - destination:
            host: reviews
            subset: v1
---
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: DestinationRule
metadata:
  name: reviews-destination
  namespace: bookinfo
spec:
  host: reviews
  subsets:
    - name: v1
      labels:
        version: v1
    - name: v2
      labels:
        version: v2
    - name: v3
      labels:
        version: v3
```

### Template 2: Canary Deployment

The rest: https://github.com/wshobson/agents/blob/HEAD/plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/istio-traffic-management/SKILL.md