SIE Server Sidecar

sie-server-sidecar builds the sie-server-sidecar binary and sie-server-sidecar container image.

The sidecar owns the queue-mode runtime around an inference adapter pod: NATS JetStream consumption, batching and scheduling, IPC to the adapter, payload fetching, result framing, ACK/NAK behavior, canonical telemetry, and readiness.

It does not load model weights or link GPU libraries. The colocated sie-server container remains the Python adapter/model-execution process.

Public and runtime names:

• Kubernetes container: worker-sidecar
• Binary: sie-server-sidecar
• Image: ghcr.io/superlinked/sie-server-sidecar
• Metrics: push-only OTLP via the sie.worker.* contract; Prometheus compatibility is a collector/exporter concern

The sidecar also has a brokerless local-ingest mode for trusted colocated callers. Its length-prefixed MessagePack protocol sends ordinary primitives through the same Rust preparation, scheduling, admission, and backend pipeline without NATS. Generation uses a separate streaming operation: each semantic chunk is validated and emitted through the canonical v0.2 bounded writer. Each connection also has fixed operation-count and retained-request-byte budgets; when either is full, the reader stops accepting frame bodies until capacity returns. Active envelope IDs are unique, so concurrent responses cannot become ambiguous. Exactly one transport terminal closes each operation, and cancellation or client disconnect is forwarded to the Python generation processor with a finite drain. timeout_ms=0 leaves generation timing to the gateway. Rust normalizes legacy base64 generation images to bounded MessagePack binary; Python accepts binary and the legacy representation for mixed-version compatibility.

The local socket is an access-controlled process boundary, not an authentication protocol. The listener restricts its socket node, validates a domain-separated request digest and route identity, caps frame/media/request sizes, and rejects unresolved payload references.

With the cloud-storage feature, payload reads support S3, GCS, Azure Blob, and native oss:// Alibaba OSS Signature V4. OSS requires SIE_OSS_REGION and uses explicit environment credentials or ACK RRSA OIDC only; node metadata, profiles, and credential-file fallbacks are excluded.

See docs/architecture-guide.md for the runtime contract and deployment caveats.