---
audience: developer
components:
  - eventing
function: how-to
---

# About sinks

When you create an event source, you can specify a _sink_ where events are sent to from the source. A sink is an _Addressable_ or a _Callable_ resource that can receive incoming events from other resources. Knative Services, Channels, and Brokers are all examples of sinks.

Addressable objects receive and acknowledge an event delivered over HTTP to an address defined in their `status.address.url` field. As a special case, the core [Kubernetes Service object](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/service-resources/service-v1/) also fulfils the Addressable interface.

Callable objects are able to receive an event delivered over HTTP and transform the event, returning 0 or 1 new events in the HTTP response. These returned events may be further processed in the same way that events from an external event source are processed.

## Sink as a parameter

Sink is used as a reference to an object that resolves to a URI to use as the sink.

A `sink` definition supports the following fields:

| Field | Description | Required or optional |
|-------|-------------|----------------------|
| `ref` | This points to an Addressable. | Required if _not_ using `uri`  |
| `ref.apiVersion` | API version of the referent. | Required if using `ref` |
| [`ref.kind`][kubernetes-kinds] | Kind of the referent. | Required if using `ref` |
| [`ref.namespace`][kubernetes-namespaces] | Namespace of the referent. If omitted this defaults to the object holding it. | Optional |
| [`ref.name`][kubernetes-names] | Name of the referent. | Required if using `ref` |
| `uri` | This can be an absolute URL with a non-empty scheme and non-empty host that points to the target or a relative URI. Relative URIs are resolved using the base URI retrieved from Ref. | Required if _not_ using `ref` |

!!! note
    At least one of `ref` or `uri` is required. If both are specified, `uri` is
    resolved into the URL from the Addressable `ref` result.

### Sink parameter example

Given the following YAML, if `ref` resolves into
`"http://mysink.default.svc.cluster.local"`, then `uri` is added to this
resulting in `"http://mysink.default.svc.cluster.local/extra/path"`.

<!-- TODO we should have a page to point to describing the ref+uri destinations and the rules we use to resolve those and reuse the page. -->

```yaml
apiVersion: sources.knative.dev/v1
kind: SinkBinding
metadata:
  name: bind-heartbeat
spec:
  ...
  sink:
    ref:
      apiVersion: v1
      kind: Service
      namespace: default
      name: mysink
    uri: /extra/path
```

!!! contract
    This results in the `K_SINK` environment variable being set on the `subject`
    as `"http://mysink.default.svc.cluster.local/extra/path"`.

## Using custom resources as sinks

To use a Kubernetes custom resource (CR) as a sink for events, you must:

1. Make the CR Addressable. You must ensure that the CR contains a `status.address.url`. For more information, see the spec for [Addressable resources](https://github.com/knative/specs/blob/main/specs/eventing/overview.md#addressable).

1. Create an Addressable-resolver ClusterRole to obtain the necessary RBAC rules for the sink to receive events.

    For example, you can create a `kafkasinks-addressable-resolver` ClusterRole to allow `get`, `list`, and `watch` access to KafkaSink objects and statuses:

    ```yaml
    kind: ClusterRole
    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
    metadata:
      name: kafkasinks-addressable-resolver
      labels:
        kafka.eventing.knative.dev/release: devel
        duck.knative.dev/addressable: "true"
    # Do not use this role directly. These rules will be added to the "addressable-resolver" role.
    rules:
      - apiGroups:
          - eventing.knative.dev
        resources:
          - kafkasinks
          - kafkasinks/status
        verbs:
          - get
          - list
          - watch
    ```

## Filtering events sent to sinks by using Triggers

You can connect a Trigger to a sink, so that events are filtered before they are sent to the sink. A sink that is connected to a Trigger is configured as a `subscriber` in the Trigger resource spec.

For example:

```yaml
apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1
kind: Trigger
metadata:
  name: <trigger-name>
spec:
...
  subscriber:
    ref:
      apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
      kind: KafkaSink
      name: <kafka-sink-name>
```

Where;

- `<trigger-name>` is the name of the Trigger being connected to the sink.
- `<kafka-sink-name>` is the name of a KafkaSink object.

## Specifying sinks using the kn CLI --sink flag

When you create an event-producing CR by using the Knative (`kn`) CLI, you can specify a sink where events are sent to from that resource, by using the `--sink` flag.

The following example creates a SinkBinding that uses a Service, `http://event-display.svc.cluster.local`, as the sink:

```bash
kn source binding create bind-heartbeat \
  --namespace sinkbinding-example \
  --subject "Job:batch/v1:app=heartbeat-cron" \
  --sink http://event-display.svc.cluster.local \
  --ce-override "sink=bound"
```

The `svc` in `http://event-display.svc.cluster.local` determines that the sink is a Knative Service. Other default sink prefixes include Channel and Broker.

!!! tip
    You can configure which resources can be used with the `--sink` flag for `kn` CLI commands by [customizing `kn`](../../client/configure-kn.md#example-configuration-file).

## Supported third-party sink types

| Name                                                                             | Maintainer | Description                          |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| -- |--------------------------------------|
| [Amazon S3 Sink](./integration-sink/aws_s3.md)                                   | Knative  | Send events to AWS S3 bucket                  |
| [Amazon SNS Sink](./integration-sink/aws_sns.md)                                 | Knative  | Send events to AWS SNS topic                  |
| [Amazon SQS Sink](./integration-sink/aws_sqs.md)                                 | Knative  | Send events to AWS SQS queue                  |
| [JobSink](job-sink.md)                                                           | Knative  | Trigger long-running background jobs          |
| [KafkaSink](kafka-sink.md)                                                       | Knative  | Send events to a Kafka topic                  |
| [Logger Sink](./integration-sink/logger.md)                                      | Knative  | Send events to a logger, useful for debugging |
| [RedisSink](https://github.com/knative-extensions/eventing-redis/tree/main/sink) | Knative  | Send events to a Redis Stream                 |


[kubernetes-kinds]:
  https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#types-kinds
[kubernetes-names]:
  https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/names/#names
[kubernetes-namespaces]:
  https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/namespaces/
