Getting Started

Verified against the README quick start at commit 658499d. Commands assume a local machine with Docker available for kind.

Prerequisites

• Go at the version pinned in go.mod (go 1.26 at this commit).
• kubectl v1.19 or newer.
• kind v0.14.0 or newer.

Install

The repository ships a script that brings up a full local Karmada plus member clusters.

git clone https://github.com/karmada-io/karmada
cd karmada
hack/local-up-karmada.sh

This script starts a host cluster, builds the control plane from the current code, deploys it, and creates and joins member clusters. On success it prints how to reach the environment:

Local Karmada is running.

To start using your Karmada environment, run:
  export KUBECONFIG="$HOME/.kube/karmada.config"

A first working setup

Propagate an nginx Deployment to member clusters. Use the karmada-apiserver context, which is the main kubeconfig for the control plane.

1. Point kubectl at the Karmada control plane.

   export KUBECONFIG="$HOME/.kube/karmada.config"
   kubectl config use-context karmada-apiserver

2. Create the Deployment template and a PropagationPolicy.

   kubectl create -f samples/nginx/deployment.yaml
   kubectl create -f samples/nginx/propagationpolicy.yaml

The sample policy selects the nginx Deployment and divides replicas across member1 and member2 by static weight (samples/nginx/propagationpolicy.yaml).

Verify it works

Check the Deployment status from the Karmada control plane; you do not need to log into member clusters.

kubectl get deployment

Expected output:

NAME    READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
nginx   2/2     2            2           20s

Where to go next

• For production install options (instead of the local script), see the karmadactl init command (pkg/karmadactl/cmdinit/cmdinit.go:121) and the Karmada website.
• For Kubernetes version compatibility, HA, security hardening, and scaling, follow the official docs linked from the project site.