AI as a copilot

AI in Mirops is optional and off by default, and today it runs on upgrade analysis — not on the ClusterMirror or the impact check, which stay fully deterministic. When enabled, it acts as a copilot on the gauge, not a judge on the gate. It can nudge the readiness score and add human-readable reasoning — but it can never block or unblock an upgrade. Deterministic facts remain the sole authority for the verdict.

This static illustration provides a quick visual summary of the same flow:

What the AI does

When spec.ai.enabled is true, the operator sends a digest of the mirror (the at-risk workloads, nodes, add-on compatibility, dependency blast radius) to Anthropic or OpenAI, and blends the model's 0–100 judgment into the gauge:

total = base × 0.7 + aiScore × 0.3

The model focuses on semantic risk the numbers miss — workload criticality inferred from names (postgres, payment), data-loss risk when draining stateful workloads, correlated failures, and add-on dependency chains the rules might not fully trace. It returns a score, a reasoning paragraph, and — when remediation is enabled — proposed fix actions.

AI boundary

The optional copilot never owns the gate

AI may contribute reasoning and adjust the readiness score. Deterministic report facts continue to govern decision.allow.

What the AI never does

• It never changes decision.level. The gate is 100% deterministic.
• It never hides a blocker or invents one.
• It isn't required — the entire product works with the AI off. The base analysis is a complete, deterministic verdict on its own.

Why it's optional (and often server-side)

• Determinism is a feature. A CI gate you can trust must be reproducible; a non-deterministic model must not sit on it.
• No API key, no friction. Open-source users run Mirops with zero AI configured. The AI is an enhancement, not a dependency.
• Token-aware. Mirops only sends at-risk resources to the model, memoizes the result per unchanged snapshot, and caps the response with a configurable maxTokens — so the AI runs only when the cluster genuinely changed.

Enabling it

Set spec.ai.enabled and point to a Secret holding your API key. See the AI scoring guide for the full setup.

Next

• Turn AI insight into action with remediation.
• Configure it in the AI scoring guide.