The Kubernetes resource that defines how external HTTP traffic reaches services inside the cluster, a centralized routing rule.
An Ingress is a Kubernetes resource that defines HTTP routing rules from outside the cluster to services inside it, by hostname (api.example.com), path (/v1/users), or both. The Ingress is implemented by an Ingress Controller (NGINX, Traefik, HAProxy, ALB) running as a deployment in the cluster. The pattern collapses what would otherwise be many per-service load balancers into one shared entry point with centralized TLS termination, routing, and rate limiting.
Every service in a cluster needing its own load balancer doesn't scale, both in cloud-cost and in operational complexity. Ingress consolidates the entry point and gives the team one place to enforce TLS, allowlists, redirects, and rate limits across every service, with declarative YAML that ships through GitOps.
See the part of the platform that handles ingress (kubernetes) in production.