Install k0rdent

This section assumes that you already have a kubernetes cluster installed. If you need to setup a cluster you can follow the Create and prepare a Kubernetes cluster with k0s to create a test cluster, or Create and prepare a production grade Kubernetes cluster with EKS to create something more substantial.

The actual management cluster is a Kubernetes cluster with the k0rdent application installed. The simplest way to install k0rdent is through its Helm chart. You can find the latest release here, and from there you can deploy the Helm chart, as in:

helm install kcm oci://ghcr.io/k0rdent/kcm/charts/kcm --version 1.0.0-rc1 -n kcm-system --create-namespace

Pulled: ghcr.io/k0rdent/kcm/charts/kcm:1.0.0-rc1
Digest: sha256:14d3f0f36a183759931626886b4742e1c96bf3ecfd8d5d9268ca1ef5db3f553c
NAME: kcm
LAST DEPLOYED: Sun May 18 22:44:13 2025
NAMESPACE: kcm-system
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None

Note

Make sure to specify the correct release version number.

The helm chart deploys the KCM operator and prepares the environment, and KCM then proceeds to deploy the various subcomponents, including CAPI. The entire process takes a few minutes.