For a zero-mean Gaussian process observed with independent Gaussian noise, the latent value at a new input is conditionally normal. Its mean is the kernel cross-covariance times the noisy kernel-matrix inverse times the observations, and its variance is the prior variance minus the corresponding quadratic form.
Let have entries , let have entries , and let . The Gaussian process prior and independent Gaussian noise imply
Applying the conditional multivariate normal distribution gives the Gaussian process regression posterior
where