CoreDNS

CoreDNS is a CNCF graduated DNS server written in Go that serves as the default DNS service for Kubernetes clusters. It is flexible and extensible through a plugin architecture, supporting DNS-based service discovery, forwarding, caching, and integration with etcd, Kubernetes, and other backends. CoreDNS can serve as an authoritative DNS server or a recursive resolver, with HTTP plugins exposing health, readiness, and Prometheus metrics endpoints for Kubernetes operations.

CoreDNS publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network: Health API, Metrics API, and Ready API. Tagged areas include Apache 2.0, Cloud Native, CNCF, DNS, and Go.

The CoreDNS catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 3 Spectral governance rulesets.

CoreDNS’s developer surface includes documentation, getting-started guide, engineering blog, changelog, and 13 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

42.2/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 28/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

AccessFree

5 APIs

Apache 2.0Cloud NativeCNCFDNSGoGraduatedKubernetesNetworkingOpen SourcePluginsPrometheusService Discovery

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

Composite quality — 42.2/100 · developing

Contract Quality 13.4 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 5.2 / 20

Commercial Clarity 5.8 / 20

Operational Transparency 6.8 / 13

Governance 3.8 / 12

Discoverability 7.2 / 10

Agent readiness — 28/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/coredns: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 5

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Coredns Rate Limits

3 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

JSONSchema

JSONSchema

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

JSONLD

JSONLD

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Build 4

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubRepository

Plugins

ExternalPlugins

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

ChangeLog

ChangeLog

Community

Community

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

License

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

CNCF

CNCF

Source (apis.yml)

aid: coredns
name: CoreDNS
kind: opensource
description: CoreDNS is a CNCF graduated DNS server written in Go that serves as the default DNS service for Kubernetes clusters.
  It is flexible and extensible through a plugin architecture, supporting DNS-based service discovery, forwarding, caching,
  and integration with etcd, Kubernetes, and other backends. CoreDNS can serve as an authoritative DNS server or a recursive
  resolver, with HTTP plugins exposing health, readiness, and Prometheus metrics endpoints for Kubernetes operations.
url: https://coredns.io
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/coredns.png
tags:
- Apache 2.0
- Cloud Native
- CNCF
- DNS
- Go
- Graduated
- Kubernetes
- Networking
- Open Source
- Plugins
- Prometheus
- Service Discovery
created: '2026-03-16'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
type: Index
access: Public
position: Provider
apis:
- aid: coredns:coredns-dns-api
  name: CoreDNS DNS Interface
  description: CoreDNS implements the standard DNS protocol (RFC 1035) serving both UDP and TCP queries. In Kubernetes, it
    resolves service names to cluster IPs, headless services to pod IPs, and supports SRV records for port discovery. The
    Kubernetes plugin watches the API server for service and endpoint changes to keep DNS records current. Additional protocol
    bindings include DNS-over-TLS (DoT), DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ), and gRPC.
  humanURL: https://coredns.io/manual/toc/
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/manual/toc/
  tags:
  - DNS
  - DoH
  - DoQ
  - DoT
  - Kubernetes
  - Service Discovery
- aid: coredns:coredns-plugin-api
  name: CoreDNS Plugin API
  description: The CoreDNS plugin framework allows extending DNS server functionality through a chain of plugins defined in
    the Corefile configuration. External plugins can be written in Go to add custom DNS record sources, filtering, metrics,
    and middleware. Each plugin implements the Handler interface to process DNS requests.
  humanURL: https://coredns.io/explugins/
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/explugins/
  - type: Reference
    url: https://coredns.io/manual/plugins/
  tags:
  - Extensibility
  - Plugins
- aid: coredns:coredns-health-api
  name: CoreDNS Health API
  description: Health check endpoints used by Kubernetes liveness and readiness probes to assess the operational state of
    the CoreDNS process.
  humanURL: https://coredns.io/manual/toc/
  baseURL: http://localhost:8080
  tags:
  - Health
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/coredns-health-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/health/
  - type: ReadyDocumentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/ready/
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/coredns-health-rules.yml
  - type: Capabilities
    url: capabilities/coredns-health-capabilities.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/metrics/
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/coredns-metrics-rules.yml
  - type: Capabilities
    url: capabilities/coredns-metrics-capabilities.yml
- aid: coredns:coredns-metrics-api
  name: CoreDNS Metrics API
  description: Prometheus-compatible metrics endpoints exposing DNS query statistics, cache performance, latency histograms,
    and build information.
  humanURL: https://coredns.io/manual/toc/
  baseURL: http://localhost:8080
  tags:
  - Metrics
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/coredns-metrics-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/health/
  - type: ReadyDocumentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/ready/
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/coredns-health-rules.yml
  - type: Capabilities
    url: capabilities/coredns-health-capabilities.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/metrics/
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/coredns-metrics-rules.yml
  - type: Capabilities
    url: capabilities/coredns-metrics-capabilities.yml
- aid: coredns:coredns-ready-api
  name: CoreDNS Ready API
  description: Readiness check endpoints that indicate whether CoreDNS plugins have finished initializing and are ready to
    serve DNS queries.
  humanURL: https://coredns.io/manual/toc/
  baseURL: http://localhost:8080
  tags:
  - Ready
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/coredns-ready-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/health/
  - type: ReadyDocumentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/ready/
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/coredns-health-rules.yml
  - type: Capabilities
    url: capabilities/coredns-health-capabilities.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://coredns.io/plugins/metrics/
  - type: Rules
    url: rules/coredns-metrics-rules.yml
  - type: Capabilities
    url: capabilities/coredns-metrics-capabilities.yml
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/coredns-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/coredns-domain-security.yml
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/coredns-corefile-schema.json
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/coredns-context.jsonld
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/coredns-vocabulary.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://coredns.io/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://coredns.io/manual/toc/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://coredns.io/2017/07/24/quick-start/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/coredns
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/coredns/coredns
- type: Plugins
  url: https://coredns.io/plugins/
- type: ExternalPlugins
  url: https://coredns.io/explugins/
- type: Blog
  url: https://coredns.io/blog/
- type: ChangeLog
  url: https://github.com/coredns/coredns/releases
- type: Community
  url: https://slack.cncf.io/
- type: License
  url: https://github.com/coredns/coredns/blob/master/LICENSE
- type: CNCF
  url: https://www.cncf.io/projects/coredns/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com