A read-only volume is an inline CSI volume in the pod spec. It needs no PersistentVolume and no claim, so any pod in any namespace can mount any repository the node can reach.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: reader
spec:
  containers:
    - name: reader
      image: debian:12-slim
      command: ["sleep", "infinity"]
      volumeMounts:
        - name: data
          mountPath: /data
          readOnly: true
  volumes:
    - name: data
      csi:
        driver: git.liken.sh
        readOnly: true
        volumeAttributes:
          url: https://example.com/data/franchises.git
          ref: main
          pull: 5m

The pod sees a plain directory with the files of the ref and no .git. Every volume of the same URL on a node shares one bare repository, so ten pods on one repository cost one fetch. The driver fetches every pull, and when the ref moved it replaces the files under the mount one by one, so a reader sees the old file or the new one and never a partial write.

The attributes reference lists every attribute, its values, and its default.

When the remote is unreachable

By default a volume whose fetch fails at start is refused, and the pod stays in ContainerCreating with the reason in its events. Set offline: allowStale to publish the node’s last copy of the ref instead. The volume’s condition then reports the fetch error until a fetch succeeds. A repository the node has never fetched is refused under both settings, because there is nothing to publish.

Private repositories

Name a Secret in the pod’s namespace with nodePublishSecretRef. The driver reads two kinds of credential from it:

• ssh-privatekey, for an SSH URL, with an optional known_hosts. With known_hosts, the driver checks the host key. Without it, the driver accepts the first key it sees and refuses a later change.
• token, for an HTTPS URL, with an optional username. The default username is git.

    - name: data
      csi:
        driver: git.liken.sh
        readOnly: true
        volumeAttributes:
          url: git@example.com:data/private.git
        nodePublishSecretRef:
          name: data-deploy-key

The credential reaches the node’s disk only for the length of one git invocation, and the token never appears on a command line.

What the driver reports

A refused mount, a stale publish, and a fetch that fails after one that worked each post an Event on the pod. kubectl describe pod shows them. The volume’s condition, which the kubelet exposes as kubelet_volume_stats_health_status_abnormal, is abnormal for a stale publish and for a failed fetch until the next fetch succeeds.