Overview

At the root of your pipeline, there is a file name vars.yml.

This file defines:

what tools will be used by your pipeline
what packages will be deployed by your pipeline

There is currently 2 kinds of packages:

a bundle, consisting of a set of manifests that will be executed to converge the state of your Kubernetes cluster towards your desired state
an application, consisting of a set of Kubernetes resources deployed with kapp

And the following tools are supported:

kubectl, enabled by default
kapp, enabled by default
helm
kustomize
ytt
docker
kbld
vault

Those tools allow your pipeline to:

build and push Docker images to a Container Registry
deploy static or templated Kubernetes resources
read/write secrets

Pipeline layout

Alongside the vars.yml file, you'll find a bundles folder and an applications folder, containing the packages to deploy.

|-- bundles/
|   |-- <bundle name>/
|       |-- 10-kubernetes-manifest.yml
|       |-- 20-bash-manifest.sh
|-- applications/
|   |-- <application name>/
|       |-- kubernetes-manifest.yml
|-- vars.yml

Packages are deployed in the order they are defined in the vars.yml file.

In a bundle, manifests are applied in an alphabetical order and currently supports the following kinds:

a Kubernetes manifest, deployed with kubectl apply, named *.yml or *.yaml
a Shell manifest, executed with bash, named *.sh

For each application, a Kubernetes namespace named klifter-system-app-<application name> will be created, and used by kapp to deploy the application.

Example configuration

vars.yml:

---

tools:
  - helm
  - kbld

packages:
  - name: build-foobar-images
    kind: bundle
  - name: generate-foobar-app
    kind: bundle
  - name: foobar
    kind: application

environment:
  - DOCKER_HOST
  - DOCKER_USERNAME
  - DOCKER_PASSWORD

The above configuration file will expect:

a bundles/build-foobar-images/ folder
a bundles/generate-foobar-app/ folder
an applications/foobar/ folder
the listed environment variables (in the environment property) to be set

NB: A bundle can use ytt or helm template to generate files in a later application folder.

Environment variables

Environment Variable	Description	Required	Default Value
`K8S_STATE_USER`	User used to execute Bash manifests	❌	`nobody`
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_KIND`	Either `git` or `local`	✅	N/A

If K8S_STATE_SOURCE_KIND is set to git:

Environment Variable	Description	Required	Default Value
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_GIT_URL`	URL to the Git repository to clone	✅	N/A
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_GIT_REF`	Branch, tag or commit to clone	❌	`main`
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_GIT_DIR`	Directory within the repository containing the source	❌	`.`

If it is set to local:

Environment Variable	Description	Required	Default Value
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_LOCAL_DIR`	Absolute path to the folder containing the source	✅	N/A

The klifter Docker image provides the following defaults:

Environment Variable	Value
`K8S_STATE_USER`	`klifter-restricted`
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_KIND`	`local`
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_LOCAL_DIR`	`"/data"`
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_GIT_REF`	`"main"`
`K8S_STATE_SOURCE_GIT_DIR`	`"."`

It also provides the following users:

klifter-agent to run the Ansible playbook
klifter-restricted to run the Bash manifests

NB: It is recommended to not override the K8S_STATE_USER in the Docker image.

What's next?

Learn how to write bundles or applications.

📚 / Documentation / Tutorials / Configuration

Overview

Pipeline layout

Example configuration

Environment variables

What's next?