Stack Definition Language (SDL)

Customers / tenants define the deployment services, datacenters, requirements, and pricing parameters, in a "manifest" file (deploy.yaml). The file is written in a declarative language called Software Definition Language (SDL). SDL is a human friendly data standard for declaring deployment attributes. The SDL file is a "form" to request resources from the Network. SDL is compatible with the YAML standard and similar to Docker Compose files.
Configuration files may end in .yml or .yaml.
A complete deployment has the following sections:
​version​
​services​
​profiles​
​deployment​
​persistent storage​
​gpu support​
​stable payment​
An example deployment configuration can be found here.
Networking
Networking - allowing connectivity to and between workloads - can be configured via the Stack Definition Language (SDL) file for a deployment. By default, workloads in a deployment group are isolated - nothing else is allowed to connect to them. This restriction can be relaxed.
Version
Indicates version of Akash configuration file. Currently only "2.0" is accepted.
Services
The top-level services entry contains a map of workloads to be ran on the Akash deployment. Each key is a service name; values are a map containing the following keys:
Name
Required
Meaning
image
Yes
Docker image of the container

Best practices:
avoid using :latest image tags as Akash Providers heavily cache images
depends-on
No
NOTE - field is marked for future use and currently has no impact on deployments.
command
No
Custom command use when executing container
args
No
Arguments to custom command use when executing the container
env
No
Environment variables to set in running container. See services.env​
expose
No
Entities allowed to connect to the services. See services.expose​
services.env
A list of environment variables to expose to the running container.
env:
  - API_KEY=0xcafebabe
  - CLIENT_ID=0xdeadbeef
services.expose
Notes Regarding Port Use in the Expose Stanza
HTTPS is possible in Akash deployments but only self signed certs are generated.
To implement signed certs the deployment must be front ended via a solution such as Cloudflare. If interested in this path, we have created docs for Cloudflare with Akash.
You can expose any other port besides 80 as the ingress port (HTTP, HTTPS) port using as: 80 directive if the app understands HTTP / HTTPS. Example of exposing a React web app using this method:
      - port: 3000
        as: 80
        to:
          - global: true
        accept:
          - www.mysite.com
In the SDL it is only necessary to expose port 80 for web apps. With this specification both ports 80 and 443 are exposed.
expose is a list describing what can connect to the service. Each entry is a map containing one or more of the following fields:
Name
Required
Meaning
port
Yes
Container port to expose
as
No
Port number to expose the container port as
accept
No
List of hosts to accept connections for
proto
No
Protocol type. Valid values = tcp or udp
to
No
List of entities allowed to connect. See services.expose.to​
The as value governs the default proto value as follows:
NOTE - when as is not set, it will default to the value set by the port mandatory directive.
NOTE - when one exposes as: 80 (HTTP), the Kubernetes ingress controller makes the application available over HTTPS as well, though with the default self-signed ingress certs.
port
proto default
80
http & https
all others
tcp & udp
services.expose.to
expose.to is a list of clients to accept connections from. Each item is a map with one or more of the following entries:
Name
Value
Default
Description
service
A service in this deployment
​
Allow the given service to connect
global
true or false
false
If true, allow connections from outside of the datacenter
If no service is given and global is true, any client can connect from anywhere (web servers typically want this).
If a service name is given and global is false, only the services in the current datacenter can connect. If a service name is given and global is true, services in other datacenters for this deployment can connect.
If global is false then a service name must be given.
profiles
The profiles section contains named compute and placement profiles to be used in the deployment.
profiles.compute
profiles.compute is map of named compute profiles. Each profile specifies compute resources to be leased for each service instance uses uses the profile.
Example:
This defines a profile named web having resource requirements of 2 vCPUs, 2 gigabytes of memory, and 5 gigabytes of storage space available.
web:
  cpu: 2
  memory: "2Gi"
  storage: "5Gi"
cpu units represent a vCPU share and can be fractional. When no suffix is present the value represents a fraction of a whole CPU share. With a m suffix, the value represnts the number of milli-CPU shares (1/1000 of a CPU share).
Example:
Value
CPU-Share
1
1
0.5
1/2
"100m"
1/10
"50m"
1/20
memory, storage units are described in bytes. The following suffixes are allowed for simplification:
Suffix
Value
k
1000
Ki
1024
M
1000^2
Mi
1024^2
G
1000^3
Gi
1024^3
T
1000^4
Ti
1024^4
P
1000^5
Pi
1024^5
E
1000^6
Ei
1024^6
profiles.placement
profiles.placement is map of named datacenter profiles. Each profile specifies required datacenter attributes and pricing configuration for each compute profile that will be used within the datacenter. It also specifies optional list of signatures of which tenants expects audit of datacenter attributes.
Example:
westcoast:
  attributes:
    region: us-west
  signedBy:
    allOf:
      - "akash1vz375dkt0c60annyp6mkzeejfq0qpyevhseu05"
    anyOf:
      - "akash1vl3gun7p8y4ttzajrtyevdy5sa2tjz3a29zuah"
  pricing:
    web:
      denom: uakt
      amount: 8
    db:
      denom: uakt
      amount: 100
This defines a profile named westcoast having required attributes {region="us-west"}, and with a max price for the web and db compute profiles of 8 and 15 uakt per block, respectively. It also requires that the provider's attributes have been signed by the accounts akash1vz375dkt0c60annyp6mkzeejfq0qpyevhseu05 and akash1vl3gun7p8y4ttzajrtyevdy5sa2tjz3a29zuah.
profiles.placement.signedBy
Optional
The signedBy section allows you to state attributes that must be signed by one or more accounts of your choosing. This allows for requiring a third-party certification of any provider that you deploy to.
Deployment
The deployment section defines how to deploy the services. It is a mapping of service name to deployment configuration.
Each service to be deployed has an entry in the deployment. This entry is maps datacenter profiles to compute profiles to create a final desired configuration for the resources required for the service.
Example:
web:
  westcoast:
    profile: web
    count: 20
This says that the 20 instances of the web service should be deployed to a datacenter matching the westcoast datacenter profile. Each instance will have the resources defined in the web compute profile available to it.
GPU Support
GPUs can be added to your workload via inclusion the compute profile section.  The placement of the GPU stanza can be viewed in the full compute profile example shown below.
NOTE - currently the only accepted vendor is nvidia but others will be added soon
profiles:
  compute:
    obtaingpu:
      resources:
        cpu:
          units: 1.0
        memory:
          size: 1Gi
        gpu:
          units: 1
          attributes:
            vendor:
              nvidia:
                - model: 4090
        storage:
          size: 1Gi
​
Additional GPU Use Notes
Full GPU SDL Example
To view an example GPU enabled SDL in full for greater context, review this example which utilized the declaration of several GPU models.
Model Specification Optional
The declaration of a GPU model is optional in the SDL.  If your deployment does not require a specific GPU model, leave the model declaration blank as seen in the following example.
        gpu:
          units: 1
          attributes:
            vendor:
              nvidia:
Multiple Models Declared
If your deployment is optimized to run on multiple GPU models, include the appropriate list of models as seen in the following example.  In this usage, any Akash provider that has a model in the list will bid on the deployment.
​
        gpu:
          units: 1
          attributes:
            vendor:
              nvidia:
                - model: 4090
                - model: t4
Stable Payment
Use of Stable Payments is supported in the Akash SDL and is declared in the placement section of the SDL as shown in the example below.
NOTE - currently only Axelar USDC (uusdc) is supported and denom must be specified as the precise IBC channel name shown in the example.
  placement:
    global:
      pricing:
        web:
          denom: ibc/170C677610AC31DF0904FFE09CD3B5C657492170E7E52372E48756B71E56F2F1
          amount: 100
        bew:
          denom: ibc/170C677610AC31DF0904FFE09CD3B5C657492170E7E52372E48756B71E56F2F1
          amount: 100
Full GPU SDL Example 
To view an example Stable Payment enabled SDL in full for greater context, review this example.

Name	Required	Meaning
`image`	Yes	Docker image of the container Best practices: avoid using `:latest` image tags as Akash Providers heavily cache images
`depends-on`	No	*NOTE - field is marked for future use and currently has no impact on deployments.*
`command`	No	Custom command use when executing container
`args`	No	Arguments to custom command use when executing the container
`env`	No	Environment variables to set in running container. See services.env
`expose`	No	Entities allowed to connect to the services. See services.expose

Name	Required	Meaning
`port`	Yes	Container port to expose
`as`	No	Port number to expose the container port as
`accept`	No	List of hosts to accept connections for
`proto`	No	Protocol type. Valid values = `tcp` or `udp`
`to`	No	List of entities allowed to connect. See services.expose.to

Name	Value	Default	Description
`service`	A service in this deployment		Allow the given service to connect
`global`	`true` or `false`	`false`	If true, allow connections from outside of the datacenter

Value	CPU-Share
`1`	1
`0.5`	1/2
`"100m"`	1/10
`"50m"`	1/20

Suffix	Value
`k`	1000
`Ki`	1024
`M`	1000^2
`Mi`	1024^2
`G`	1000^3
`Gi`	1024^3
`T`	1000^4
`Ti`	1024^4
`P`	1000^5
`Pi`	1024^5
`E`	1000^6
`Ei`	1024^6

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