Operate AISIX

After AISIX can route traffic, the operating work shifts to keeping that path healthy, secure, and observable. This chapter applies to self-hosted gateways and to managed gateways where the same runtime checks apply.

The operating surface starts with the static settings the gateway needs at startup, then continues through configuration propagation, production rollout, listener exposure, transport security, health checks, telemetry, and troubleshooting. These topics sit around the request path rather than replacing it: applications still call the proxy listener, AISIX still resolves gateway resources, and the gateway still reaches the upstream provider.

Some details differ by deployment mode. Self-hosted gateways can expose a local admin listener for admin health, metrics, OpenAPI, and dynamic-resource management. Managed gateways receive projected resources from the control plane and use the managed mTLS path instead of the Admin API.

The operating guides are organized around that lifecycle: configure startup behavior, prepare production exposure, secure the network path, check runtime health, export telemetry, and diagnose failures.