Argo CD in k3d with end-to-end encryption and trusted HTTPS certs

The non-trusted certificate warnings when I spun up Argo CD locally in a k3d cluster were bugging me. Let's fix them and get Argo CD spun up locally without these warnings, with trusted certificates and end-to-end encrypted flows.

Routing k3d deployments with a traefik reverse proxy

I started writing a blog that needed a clean way to expose two services from the cluster, and it got me wondering the best way to do this. I'm often aiming to write blogs on this site in a zero-to-goal manner, so they can be read in isolation. k3d by default uses traefik, which is pretty neat when it comes to low configuration, however it did lead me to experimenting with ways to expose services with a lightweight approach that I could use in future blogs. Let's have a look at some of the options.

Running local AI code assist

I'm intrigued in how effective it is to run code assist models locally. I'm keen to explore the available IDE extensions and AI models. Let's start with VSCode, the Code GPT extension and models run locally with Ollama.

Getting started with a local Argo CD stack

Argo CD synchronises the resources in our k8s cluster with a desired state defined in a Git repository. This allows us to declare the desired state instead of explicitly deploying and updating resources. Argo CD will take care of applying updates to ensure that the apps in our cluster are in the desired state.

Spinning up a local Gitea service for GitOps practice

I wanted a quick throwaway git service for some GitOps practice. Gitea is an open source Git hosting service. It is powerful for self-hosting a GitHub-like service, but also lightweight and straightforward to spin up as needed for little experiments.

Comparing local k8s stacks

I explored spinning up a local cluster with k3d recently, however I realised I should have compared k3d with other approaches. Let's compare kind, minikube and microk8s and see how these different k8s stacks help for local development.

Monitoring Kubernetes metrics with Grafana

Grafana is an open observability platform that gives your team a centralised view on the health and behaviour of your system. We'll use Kubernetes metrics to quickly spin up some dashboards and provide foundations to experiment and learn more about Grafana.

Running GenAI on your local machine

If you are interested in exploring Generative AI without relying on cloud services, Ollama can run open models entirely locally, giving you a chance to explore GenAI APIs and capabilities.

Installing k8s resources with Helm charts

Helm charts encapsulate and simplify deployments to Kubernetes. They allow us to deploy applications quickly in a consistent way. Let's deploy an application into our local cluster to help us get started with using Helm since I'll use them in following blogs.

Local Kubernetes stack with k3d in seconds

Kubernetes helps with the running of containerized applications at scale, however you don't need a complex infrastructure to test many of the aspects of a Kubernetes cluster. You can spin up a cluster with k3d on your local machine in seconds and start experimenting with Kubernetes.