Bootstrap Overview

There are three ways to bootstrap Flux on a Kubernetes cluster. Choose the method that best fits your workflow.

Method Comparison

Method	Complexity	Best For
Flux Operator	Medium	Production clusters with full control
Flux CLI	Low	Quick setup, dev clusters
Blueprints (Dagger + KCL)	High	Automated/reproducible provisioning

Flux Operator (Recommended)

Install the Flux Operator via Helm, create secrets for Git and SOPS, then apply a FluxInstance CR. This gives full control over Flux components and SOPS decryption configuration.

See Flux Operator for step-by-step instructions.

Flux CLI

Use flux bootstrap github for the simplest setup. The CLI handles creating the repository structure and deploying Flux components.

See Flux CLI for details.

Blueprints (Dagger + KCL)

Render a complete FluxInstance manifest using Dagger and KCL. This approach is ideal for automated cluster provisioning pipelines.

See Blueprints for the Dagger module usage.

After Bootstrap

Once Flux is running, add a GitRepository pointing to this repo and create Kustomization resources for each component you want to deploy. See Quick Start.