Create Your First Controller

Install a single-node evaluation control plane, create a local administrator, and start one Jenkins controller with the built-in starter bundle.

Install Varroa

Create values-eval.yaml:

auth:
  mode: local
  bffUrl: http://localhost:8080
  dashboardUrl: http://localhost:3000
dex:
  enabled: false
operator:
  replicas: 1
gateway:
  replicas: 1
  hpa:
    minReplicas: 1
bff:
  replicas: 1
  hpa:
    minReplicas: 1
nats:
  config:
    cluster:
      enabled: false
      replicas: 1
jetStreamReplicas: 1

helm install varroa oci://ghcr.io/varroaci/charts/varroa \
  --version <version> \
  -n varroa-system --create-namespace \
  -f values-eval.yaml
kubectl get pods -n varroa-system

Wait for every pod to become Ready.

Create a Local Administrator

Use a temporary evaluation password and change it after signing in:

apiVersion: varroa.dev/v1alpha1
kind: User
metadata:
  name: admin
  namespace: varroa-system
spec:
  displayName: Evaluation Administrator
  password: "<temporary-password>"
---
apiVersion: varroa.dev/v1alpha1
kind: VarroaRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: evaluation-admin
spec:
  roleRef: admin
  subjects:
    - kind: User
      name: admin

kubectl apply -f admin.yaml
kubectl get user admin -n varroa-system -o yaml

The operator hashes the password and clears spec.password.

Create Jenkins

kubectl create namespace jenkins-demo
kubectl apply -f - <<'EOF'
apiVersion: varroa.dev/v1alpha1
kind: Controller
metadata:
  name: demo
  namespace: jenkins-demo
spec: {}
EOF
kubectl get controller demo -n jenkins-demo -w

The normal phase sequence is Pending, Provisioning, Running, then Connected. Initial image pulls and plugin installation can take several minutes.

An empty spec selects the built-in varroa-starter bundle and the compatible Jenkins and plugin baseline embedded in the release.

Open the Dashboard and Jenkins

Run these port forwards in separate terminals:

kubectl port-forward -n varroa-system service/varroa-frontend 3000:8080

kubectl port-forward -n varroa-system service/varroa-varroa-bff 8080:8080

PREFIX=demo-$(kubectl get controller demo -n jenkins-demo -o jsonpath='{.metadata.uid}' | cut -c1-8)
kubectl port-forward -n jenkins-demo "svc/$PREFIX-svc" 8081:8080

Open http://localhost:3000 and sign in as admin. Then open http://localhost:8081. Run the hello-varroa pipeline and confirm it prints hello from Varroa.

This pipeline verifies bundle delivery and Jenkins configuration. It runs on the Jenkins executor, so test a Kubernetes-agent workload separately before relying on agent provisioning.

Verify Health

kubectl get controller demo -n jenkins-demo \
  -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}{"\n"}'

The expected value is Connected. If it is not, inspect status.conditions and follow Troubleshooting.

Continue with Author a custom bundle, Configure ingress, or Configure Jenkins RBAC.