v0.4.6

## 🚀 Announcing Agent Sandbox v0.4.6!

We're excited to announce the release of Agent Sandbox v0.4.6! This release introduces major scalability enhancements through opt-in Service management, robust developer guidance with AI agent skills, expanded API and Network Policy documentation, and new stateful AI agent examples.

### ⚠️ Breaking Changes / Action Required

* **Service Creation Opt-In (#775, #800)**: The Sandbox controller no longer creates a headless Service by default for new Sandboxes. This architectural change significantly improves cluster scalability by eliminating kube-proxy and Kubernetes DNS overhead when scaling to thousands of pods. Existing Sandboxes with an auto-provisioned Service are preserved automatically.
  * **Action Required**: For new Sandboxes that require an auto-provisioned headless Service, explicitly set `spec.service: true`. To explicitly remove an existing Service, set `spec.service: false`.
  * **New `service` field**: Sandbox `spec` and SandboxTemplate `spec` now support the `service` boolean field to control the headless Service creation (default `false`). If omitted, existing services of Sandboxes will not be removed, to avoid disruption.
   * **Python SDK & Router Integration**: The Python SDK and `sandbox-router` have been updated to support direct Pod IP routing via the `X-Sandbox-Pod-IP` header, bypassing Service routing overhead. The SDK gracefully recovers from API server timeouts and disables Pod IP routing if permissions are lacking (falling back to Service routing).

### Key Highlights

* **Core Stability and Lifecycle Management**
Fixed an issue where the sandbox name hash (selector label) was unavailable when a sandbox was scaled down to zero replicas during suspension (#754). `status.labelselector` is no longer unset when replicas is 0. If the hash cannot be resolved, suspension fails gracefully with a clear error reason. Added integration tests for suspend/resume on new client instances.

* **AI Agent Skills & Developer Guidelines**
Introduced specialized AI agent skills in `.agents/skills/` (`k8s-api-conventions` and `dev-rules`) to guide AI coding assistants contributing to the repository (#766). Added `AGENTS.md` at the repo root covering project layout, build/test/lint flows, codegen rules, and GitHub Copilot/CLA guidelines (#707). Updated `.github/copilot-instructions.md` with Kubernetes API conventions and CLA reminders (#768).

* **Enhanced Documentation and Examples**
Added comprehensive core API documentation in `docs/api.md` (#247) and detailed Network Policy management documentation explaining the capabilities and limitations of `networkPolicyManagement` in `SandboxTemplate` (#743). Added a new example demonstrating how to deploy the Hermes Agent (`hermes-agent.nousresearch.com`) inside the Kubernetes Agent Sandbox with persistent storage (`volumeClaimTemplates`) and custom skill injection via ConfigMaps (#774). Updated the OpenClaw sandbox example to demonstrate usage with the gVisor runtime class on GKE for enhanced sandbox isolation (#475). Added a release automation guide and updated the PR template for release notes (#748, #790).

* **CI/CD and Release Automation**
Enabled an automated weekly release schedule (Thursdays at 9:00 AM UTC) using GitHub Actions workflows (#783). Migrated Gemini release note generation from static API keys to secure Vertex AI with short-lived Google Cloud IAM credentials (#783). Updated GitHub Actions dependencies (#788).

### Installation

#### Core & Extensions

```bash
# To install only the core components:
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox/releases/download/v0.4.6/manifest.yaml

# To install the extensions components:
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox/releases/download/v0.4.6/extensions.yaml
```

#### Python SDK

```bash
pip install k8s-agent-sandbox==0.4.6
```

--------

### Contributors

We extend our sincere thanks to all contributors to this release:
@aleks-stefanovic, @dependabot[bot], @drogovozDP, @fedebongio, @flpanbin, @janetkuo, @shrutiyam-glitch, @vicentefb, @volatilemolotov

#### 👋 New Contributors

• @fedebongio made their first contribution in https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox/pull/774

Full Changelog: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/agent-sandbox/compare/v0.4.5...v0.4.6