Installing Cluster API and Providers

The simplest option to install Cluster API providers is to use clusterctl, a utility that offers the clusterctl init command that was specifically designed for this task. For example:

clusterctl init --infrastructure vsphere

This initializes a Cluster API management cluster with Cluster API itself, the kubeadm bootstrap and control plane provider, and the vSphere provider. See clusterctl init for more details.

Important

Depending on the infrastructure provider you are planning to use some additional prerequisites should be satisfied before getting started with Cluster API. See Initialize the management cluster for more details.

Important

See Feature Gates for enabling additional features.

If you don’t want to use clusterctl, the Cluster API operator project instead offers a GitOps-friendly option.

Alternatives include managing manifests for Cluster API and providers with tools like Helm, kapp, flux, Argo CD, kustomize, or kubectl.