App Lifecycle

The app lifecycle pipeline takes an application definition and fully deploys it to a Kubernetes cluster using manifest generation and Flux GitOps, without any manual YAML authoring.

End-to-End Flow

From Deploy to live

The four stages the Deploy Application wizard shows. Select a stage for details.

Select a stage to see what happens behind it.

App Service

App Service is the manifest generation engine. It takes a declarative schema and produces production-ready Kubernetes YAML .

Generated resources:

• Deployment — with resource requests/limits, env vars, health probes
• Service — ClusterIP by default; LoadBalancer if service.type: LoadBalancer
• HorizontalPodAutoscaler — when autoscaling.enabled: true
• Ingress — when ingress.enabled: true
• ConfigMap — for non-secret environment variables
• ServiceAccount — dedicated service account per application
• NetworkPolicy — default deny-all ingress with explicit allow rules

Preview endpoint:

POST http://localhost:8091/api/v1/preview
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "app": {
    "name": "payments-api",
    "namespace": "payments",
    "type": "api",
    "containers": [
      {
        "name": "payments-api",
        "image": "registry.example.com/payments-api:v1.2.3",
        "ports": [{ "containerPort": 8080 }],
        "resources": {
          "requests": { "cpu": "100m", "memory": "128Mi" },
          "limits":   { "cpu": "500m", "memory": "512Mi" }
        }
      }
    ],
    "service": { "enabled": true },
    "autoscaling": { "enabled": true, "minReplicas": 2, "maxReplicas": 10 }
  }
}

Returns a multi-document YAML string suitable for kubectl apply -f -.

app-controller

Repo: o-apps/app-controller · Language: Go (controller-runtime)

A standard Kubernetes controller that reconciles KubeOperaApp custom resources.

KubeOperaApp CRD

apiVersion: kubeopera.io/v1alpha1
kind: KubeOperaApp
metadata:
  name: payments-api
  namespace: default
spec:
  appID: abc-123
  schema:
    app:
      name: payments-api
      namespace: payments
      # ... full kubegenic schema
  git:
    url: https://github.com/org/fleet-repo
    branch: main
    secretRef: fleet-git-credentials # K8s Secret with ssh-privatekey or password
  flux:
    interval: 5m
    targetNamespace: payments
    prune: true
status:
  phase: Ready
  gitPath: apps/payments/payments-api
  fluxGitRepository: payments-api-source
  fluxKustomization: payments-api-sync
  lastSyncedAt: "2025-04-18T14:23:01Z"

Git Authentication

The secretRef points to a Kubernetes Secret containing either:

• ssh-privatekey — for SSH-based Git authentication
• password — for HTTPS with a personal access token

Flux Integration

The controller creates two Flux CRs using unstructured objects (no Flux import required):

# GitRepository — tells Flux where to pull manifests from
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: GitRepository
metadata:
  name: payments-api-source
spec:
  url: https://github.com/org/fleet-repo
  ref:
    branch: main
  interval: 5m
  secretRef:
    name: fleet-git-credentials

# Kustomization — tells Flux what to apply
apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
  name: payments-api-sync
spec:
  sourceRef:
    kind: GitRepository
    name: payments-api-source
  path: apps/payments/payments-api
  targetNamespace: payments
  prune: true
  interval: 5m

Environment Variables

Variable	Service	Description
APP_CONTROLLER_ENABLED	kubeopera-api	Set true to enable CRD creation on app save
FLUX_GIT_URL	kubeopera-api	Fleet repository URL
FLUX_GIT_BRANCH	kubeopera-api	Branch (default: main)
FLUX_GIT_SECRET_REF	kubeopera-api	Kubernetes Secret name for Git credentials
FLUX_TARGET_NAMESPACE	kubeopera-api	Default namespace for app deployment
FLUX_INTERVAL	kubeopera-api	Flux reconcile interval (default: 5m)