Misleading AttachedListenerSets status condition by default

[lgadban]

kgateway version

main

Kubernetes Version

n/a

Describe the bug

By default, when using the experimental gateway api channel, any Gateway that is created gets a status condition such as:

  - lastTransitionTime: "2025-11-05T14:24:23Z"
    message: ""
    observedGeneration: 1
    reason: ListenerSetsNotAllowed
    status: Unknown
    type: AttachedListenerSets

If you are not using the XListenerSets API, this is extremely confusing as it comes across like an actual error.

Expected Behavior

We need to understand the expectation from upstream and if this condition truly should be added unconditionally and ideally:

• not add it in cases where XListenerSets are not being used
• provide a very clear and concise message when it must be set

Steps to reproduce the bug

Create any Gateway and check its status

Additional Environment Detail

No response

Additional Context

No response

[davidjumani]

Based on the upstream spec https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io/geps/gep-1713/#gateway-conditions, this condition is required

Implementations MUST support a new Gateway condition type AttachedListenerSets.

The condition's Status has the following values:

Unknown when no Spec.AllowedListeners config is present

We can add a custom message to make this clearer to the user

[timflannagan]

imho that status is incredibly confusing and worth re-evaluating for XLS promotion whenever that happens. in the meantime, status message sgtm.