Try Argo CD Locally¶

Tip

This guide assumes you have a grounding in the tools that Argo CD is based on. Please read understanding the basics to learn about these tools.

Follow these steps to install Kind for local development and set it up with Argo CD.

To run an Argo CD development environment review the developer guide for running locally.

Install Kind¶

Install Kind Following Instructions here.

Create a Kind Cluster¶

Once Kind is installed, create a new Kubernetes cluster with:

kind create cluster --name argocd-cluster

This will create a local Kubernetes cluster named argocd-cluster.

Set Up kubectl to Use the Kind Cluster¶

After creating the cluster, set kubectl to use your new kind cluster:

kubectl cluster-info --context kind-argocd-cluster

This command verifies that kubectl is pointed to the right cluster.

Install ArgoCD on the Cluster¶

You can now install Argo CD on your kind cluster. First, apply the Argo CD manifest to create the necessary resources:

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Expose ArgoCD API Server¶

By default, Argo CD's API server is not exposed outside the cluster. You need to expose it to access the UI locally. For development purposes, you can use Kubectl 'port-forward'.

kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8080:443

This will forward port 8080 on your local machine to the ArgoCD API server’s port 443 inside the Kubernetes cluster.

Access ArgoCD UI¶

Now, you can open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 to access the ArgoCD UI.

Log in to ArgoCD¶

To log in to the ArgoCD UI, you'll need the default admin password. You can retrieve it from the Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 -d

Use the admin username and the retrieved password to log in.

You can now move on to step #2 in the Getting Started Guide.