Skip to main content
Version: 2.26 (dev)

Kubernetes Overview

Kubernetes support is in alpha stage

Pants is currently building support for Kubernetes. Simple use cases might be supported, but many options are missing.

Please share feedback for what you need to use Pants with your Kubernetes queries by either opening a GitHub issue or joining our Slack!

Initial setup​

First, activate the relevant backend in pants.toml:

pants.toml
[GLOBAL]
backend_packages = [
  ...
  "pants.backend.experimental.k8s",
]

The Kubernetes backend adds k8s_source and k8s_sources target types for Kubernetes object files.

For example, create a file src/k8s/webpages.yaml:

src/k8s/webpages.yaml
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: webpages
data:
  index.html: |
    <html>
      <head>Hello pants!</head>
      <body>Hello pants!</body>
    </html>

Now add a k8s_sources target in src/k8s/BUILD:

src/k8s/BUILD
k8s_sources()

Deploying objects to a cluster​

We'll be using a local kind cluster throughout the tutorial. First, spin up a cluster:

kind create cluster
Creating cluster "kind" ...
 ✓ Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.25.3) đŸ–ŧ 
 ✓ Preparing nodes đŸ“Ļ  
 ✓ Writing configuration 📜 
 ✓ Starting control-plane 🕹ī¸ 
 ✓ Installing CNI 🔌 
 ✓ Installing StorageClass 💾 
Set kubectl context to "kind-kind"

Second, configure the list of available contexts in pants.toml:

pants.toml
...

[k8s]
available_contexts = [
  "kind-kind",
]

Third, create a deployable target k8s_bundle in src/k8s/BUILD:

src/k8s/BUILD
k8s_sources()
k8s_bundle(
    name="webpages",
    sources=("src/k8s/webpages.yaml",),
    context="kind-kind",
)

Now you can deploy the target:

pants experimental-deploy src/k8s:webpages
✓ src/k8s:webpages deployed to context kind-kind
Explicitly set kubectl contexts

To prevent accidentally deploying kubernetes manifests to the wrong cluster, the context field is required on k8s_bundle for deployment. For deploying the same k8s_bundle to multiple contexts, consider using parametrize builtin like k8s_bundle(..., context=parametrize("stage", "prod")). For CI agents which will only have access to a single context, set the [kubectl].pass_context to false in pants.toml to have them use their default context.