plano: an AI-native proxy server and data plane for agentic orchestration and observability

What it solves

Plano addresses the "hidden middleware" burden of moving agentic AI applications from demo to production. It removes the need for developers to manually build rote plumbing such as intent classifiers, routing logic, provider-specific API adapters, and observability instrumentation across multiple agents.

How it works

Plano acts as an AI-native proxy server and data plane built on Envoy. It decouples orchestration and delivery concerns from the application code by moving them into an out-of-process layer. Developers define agents and model providers in a YAML configuration file, and Plano handles the low-latency routing between agents, manages LLM provider quirks, and automatically captures OpenTelemetry traces and metrics.

Who it’s for

Developers building multi-agent systems who want to deploy production-grade infrastructure without being tied to specific AI frameworks or languages.

Highlights

• Declarative Orchestration: Route requests to the correct agent using natural language descriptions in YAML rather than writing custom routing code.
• Model Agility: Unified LLM APIs that allow routing by model name, alias, or automatic preferences.
• Zero-Code Observability: Automatic end-to-end capture of agentic signals and OTEL traces/metrics without requiring manual instrumentation.
• Filter Chains: Built-in support for adding guardrails, moderation policies, and memory hooks consistently across agents.