Agent Mode and Object Store

Agent mode

Agent mode is an alternative to the traditional callback mechanism. Instead of runners calling back to GARM via HTTP, they establish a persistent WebSocket connection through garm-agent. This enables:

• Bidirectional communication between GARM and runners
• Remote shell access to runner instances (when enabled)
• More reliable status reporting over unstable networks

Enabling agent tools sync

GARM can automatically sync garm-agent binaries from GitHub releases:

garm-cli controller update \
  --garm-tools-url https://api.github.com/repos/cloudbase/garm-agent/releases \
  --enable-tools-sync

Verify sync status:

garm-cli controller show

Enabling shell access on a pool

garm-cli pool update <POOL_ID> --enable-shell=true

Agent URL

The agent URL is initialized when installing the controller. Only change it if you want fine grained controll or if you plan to place a reverse proxy in front that differs from the rest of the URLs.

The agent URL must be reachable by runner instances:

garm-cli controller update --agent-url https://garm.example.com/agent

Object store

GARM includes a simple database-backed object storage system for storing files like provider binaries, agent binaries, and runner tools.

Upload a file

garm-cli object create \
  --name garm-agent-linux-amd64 \
  --description "Linux AMD64 garm-agent binary" \
  --path /path/to/garm-agent \
  --tags "binary,os_type=linux,arch=amd64"

List objects

# All objects
garm-cli object list

# Filter by tags
garm-cli object list --tags "binary,os_type=linux"

Download an object

garm-cli object download <OBJECT_ID>

Show object details

garm-cli object show <OBJECT_ID>

Update object metadata

garm-cli object update <OBJECT_ID> --name new-name --tags "new,tags"

Delete an object

garm-cli object remove <OBJECT_ID>