App Lifecycle

Service: app-service · Port: 8112

KubeOpera deploys applications without anyone writing YAML. You describe what your app is — its image, ports, resources, scaling and exposure — and the app service generates everything Kubernetes needs, following production best practices by default. app-controller commits the result to Git and Flux deploys it.

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.

1. You describe the app in the dashboard or through the API.
2. kubeopera-api records it as a KubeOperaApp resource.
3. app-controller asks the app service to generate manifests.
4. app-controller commits them to Git and points Flux at them.
5. Flux applies them in the tenant's vCluster.

What gets generated

From one app definition, the app service produces:

Resource	When	Why
Namespace	Always	Each app gets its own namespace.
ServiceAccount	Always	A dedicated identity per app, with no extra permissions.
Deployment	Always	Your containers, with resources, probes, environment and a safe rolling-update strategy.
ConfigMap	When you set plain environment variables	Configuration, kept out of the pod spec.
Service	When service.enabled	A stable in-cluster address (ClusterIP by default).
Ingress	When ingress.enabled	External HTTPS access, with a cert-manager certificate when tls is on.
HorizontalPodAutoscaler	When autoscaling.enabled	Scale on CPU (and memory, if set).
PodDisruptionBudget	When running 2+ replicas	Stay available during node maintenance.
NetworkPolicy	Always	Deny inbound traffic by default, and allow only what the app exposes.

Defaults follow Kubernetes best practice: containers run as non-root with a read-only root filesystem where possible, resource requests are always set, and liveness and readiness probes are added for the app's port.

The app definition

{
  "app": {
    "name": "payments-api",
    "namespace": "payments",
    "type": "api",
    "containers": [
      {
        "name": "payments-api",
        "image": "registry.example.com/payments-api:v1.2.3",
        "ports": [{ "containerPort": 8080 }],
        "env": [
          { "name": "LOG_LEVEL", "value": "info" },
          { "name": "DB_PASSWORD", "valueFrom": { "secretKeyRef": { "name": "payments-db", "key": "password" } } }
        ],
        "resources": {
          "requests": { "cpu": "100m", "memory": "128Mi" },
          "limits":   { "cpu": "500m", "memory": "512Mi" }
        },
        "healthCheck": { "path": "/healthz" }
      }
    ],
    "service":     { "enabled": true },
    "ingress":     { "enabled": true, "host": "payments.example.com", "tls": true },
    "autoscaling": { "enabled": true, "minReplicas": 2, "maxReplicas": 10, "targetCPU": 70 }
  }
}

Field	Description
name, namespace	The app's name and namespace.
type	api, web, worker or job — sets sensible defaults (for example, workers get no Service or Ingress).
containers[]	One or more containers: image, ports, environment, resources and health check.
service	Whether to create a Service, and its type (ClusterIP or LoadBalancer).
ingress	Whether to expose the app, its host and whether to use TLS.
autoscaling	Replica bounds and target utilization.

Preview the manifests

See exactly what KubeOpera will deploy before it does, with the preview endpoint:

curl -X POST http://app-service:8112/api/v1/preview \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @payments-api.json

It returns multi-document YAML — the same manifests app-controller would commit. The dashboard's View manifests option on the Deploy wizard uses this endpoint.

Git and Flux

For each app, app-controller creates two Flux resources in the tenant's vCluster:

apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: GitRepository
metadata:
  name: payments-api-source
spec:
  url: https://github.com/acme/fleet-repo
  ref: { branch: main }
  interval: 1m
  secretRef: { name: fleet-git-credentials }
---
apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
  name: payments-api-sync
spec:
  sourceRef: { kind: GitRepository, name: payments-api-source }
  path: tenants/alice/apps/payments-api
  targetNamespace: payments
  prune: true
  interval: 1m

The Git credentials Secret contains either ssh-privatekey (SSH) or password (an HTTPS access token).

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	8112	HTTP port.
AUTH_JWT_ACCESS_SECRET	—	Validates bearer tokens.
DEFAULT_NETWORK_POLICY	deny-ingress	Default network policy for new apps (deny-ingress or none).

The fleet repository, branch and Flux interval are configured on kubeopera-api.

Next steps

• App Creation Flow — deploy from the dashboard.
• app-controller — how definitions are reconciled.