Set up Controller Environments

This guide helps you set up a local Kubernetes environment for testing OCM controller-based deployments. You’ll install the OCM Controllers, kro, and Flux to enable GitOps workflows with OCM component versions.

You’ll end up with

  • A local or remote Kubernetes cluster with OCM Controllers, kro, and Flux installed

Estimated time

~15 minutes

Prerequisites

Setup Workflow

  1. Create a Local Kubernetes Cluster

    📣 Note: 📣
    Skip this step if you’re using a remote Kubernetes cluster.

    Create a local kind cluster:

    kind create cluster
    You should see this output
    Creating cluster "kind" ...
 ✓ Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.35.0) 🖼
 ✓ Preparing nodes 📦
 ✓ Writing configuration 📜
 ✓ Starting control-plane 🕹️
 ✓ Installing CNI 
 ✓ Installing StorageClass 💾
Set kubectl context to "kind-kind"
You can now use your cluster with:

kubectl cluster-info --context kind-kind
Have a nice day! 👋

    Verify the cluster is running:

    kubectl cluster-info
    You should see this output
    Kubernetes control plane is running at https://127.0.0.1:53348
CoreDNS is running at https://127.0.0.1:53348/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'

  2. Install kro

    Install kro following the official installation guide. The easiest way is via Helm:

    helm install kro oci://registry.k8s.io/kro/charts/kro \
  --namespace kro-system \
  --create-namespace
    You should see this output
    Pulled: registry.k8s.io/kro/charts/kro:0.8.5
Digest: sha256:c9a9dc0133f43a25711f4bdbce1eeb4b6448015958f901c6fad61a049e54415e
NAME: kro
LAST DEPLOYED: Wed Feb 25 12:02:15 2026
NAMESPACE: kro-system
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
DESCRIPTION: Install complete
TEST SUITE: None

    Verify kro is running:

    kubectl get pods -n kro-system
    You should see this output
    NAME                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kro-5644d5759f-82nsx   1/1     Running   0          2m22s

  3. Install a Deployer: Flux

    We use Flux as deployer. In theory, you could use any other deployer that is able to apply a deployable resource to a Kubernetes cluster, for instance Argo CD.

    Install the controllers using the Flux CLI:

    flux install
    You should see this output
    ✚ generating manifests
✔ manifests build completed
► installing components in flux-system namespace
CustomResourceDefinition/alerts.notification.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/buckets.source.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/externalartifacts.source.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/gitrepositories.source.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/helmcharts.source.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/helmreleases.helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/helmrepositories.source.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/kustomizations.kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/ocirepositories.source.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/providers.notification.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
CustomResourceDefinition/receivers.notification.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
Namespace/flux-system created
ClusterRole/crd-controller-flux-system created
ClusterRole/flux-edit-flux-system created
ClusterRole/flux-view-flux-system created
ClusterRoleBinding/cluster-reconciler-flux-system created
ClusterRoleBinding/crd-controller-flux-system created
ResourceQuota/flux-system/critical-pods-flux-system created
ServiceAccount/flux-system/helm-controller created
ServiceAccount/flux-system/kustomize-controller created
ServiceAccount/flux-system/notification-controller created
ServiceAccount/flux-system/source-controller created
Service/flux-system/notification-controller created
Service/flux-system/source-controller created
Service/flux-system/webhook-receiver created
Deployment/flux-system/helm-controller created
Deployment/flux-system/kustomize-controller created
Deployment/flux-system/notification-controller created
Deployment/flux-system/source-controller created
NetworkPolicy/flux-system/allow-egress created
NetworkPolicy/flux-system/allow-scraping created
NetworkPolicy/flux-system/allow-webhooks created
◎ verifying installation
✔ helm-controller: deployment ready
✔ kustomize-controller: deployment ready
✔ notification-controller: deployment ready
✔ source-controller: deployment ready
✔ install finished

    Verify Flux is running:

    kubectl get pods -n flux-system
    You should see this output
    NAME                                         READY   STATUS      RESTARTS        AGE
helm-controller-b6767d66-zbwws               1/1     Running     0               3h29m
kustomize-controller-57c7ff5596-v6fvr        1/1     Running     0               3h29m
notification-controller-58ffd586f7-pr65t     1/1     Running     0               3h29m
source-controller-6ff87cb475-2h2lv           1/1     Running     0               3h29m

  4. Install the OCM Controllers

    Use Helm to install the OCM controllers:

    helm install ocm-k8s-toolkit "oci://ghcr.io/open-component-model/kubernetes/controller/chart:<pre-release>" \
  --namespace ocm-k8s-toolkit-system \
  --create-namespace

    You can check out this list to pick the latest pre-release version until an official release was published.

    You should see this output
    Pulled: ghcr.io/open-component-model/kubernetes/controller/chart:0.0.0-66b9926
Digest: sha256:cfa13f5c98fc41c3d318471241e431479d2f35c492431c82e76b14dc6dcfcd9a
NAME: ocm-k8s-toolkit
LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Mar  9 11:59:18 2026
NAMESPACE: ocm-k8s-toolkit-system
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
DESCRIPTION: Install complete
TEST SUITE: None

    Verify the OCM controller is running:

    kubectl get pods -n ocm-k8s-toolkit-system
    You should see this output
    NAME                                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
ocm-k8s-toolkit-controller-manager-79b7975755-vxtqt   1/1     Running   0          59s

  5. Verify Complete Setup

    Check all components are running:

    kubectl get pods --all-namespaces | grep -E '(kro-system|flux-system|ocm-k8s-toolkit-system)'
    You should see this output
    NAMESPACE                NAME                                                 READY    STATUS             RESTARTS        AGE
flux-system              helm-controller-b6767d66-zbwws                        1/1     Running            0               3h39m
flux-system              kustomize-controller-57c7ff5596-v6fvr                 1/1     Running            0               3h39m
flux-system              notification-controller-58ffd586f7-pr65t              1/1     Running            0               3h39m
flux-system              source-controller-6ff87cb475-2h2lv                    1/1     Running            0               3h39m
kro-system               kro-86d5b5b5bd-6gmvr                                  1/1     Running            0               3h38m
ocm-k8s-toolkit-system   ocm-k8s-toolkit-controller-manager-788f58d4bd-ntbx8   1/1     Running            0               57s

Registry Access

The OCM Controllers need access to an OCI registry to fetch component versions.

Tip

We recommend using a publicly accessible registry like ghcr.io. Using a local registry requires additional configuration to ensure it’s accessible both from your CLI and from within the cluster.

For private registries, you’ll need to configure credentials. See Configure Credentials for Private Registries for details.

Cleanup

To remove the local kind cluster after testing, run:

kind delete cluster
You should see this output
Deleting cluster "kind" ...
Deleted nodes: ["kind-control-plane"]

Next Steps

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Create Component Versions
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Deploy Helm Charts