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arkade - Open Source Marketplace For Developer Tools

arkade is how developers install the latest versions of their favourite CLI tools and Kubernetes apps.

With arkade get, you'll have kubectl, kind, terraform, and jq on your machine faster than you can type apt-get install or brew update.

With over 120 CLIs and 55 Kubernetes apps (charts, manifests, installers) available for Kubernetes, gone are the days of contending with dozens of README files just to set up a development stack with the usual suspects like ingress-nginx, Postgres, and cert-manager.

• arkade - Open Source Marketplace For Developer Tools
  • Support arkade 👋
  • Should you try arkade?
  • Getting arkade
  • Usage overview
  • Download CLI tools with arkade
  • Install System Packages
  • Install packages from OCI images
  • Install CLIs during CI with GitHub Actions
  • Bump Helm chart versions
  • Verify and upgrade images in Helm charts
    • Upgrade images within a Helm chart
  • Verify images within a helm chart
  • Installing apps with arkade
    • Create a Kubernetes cluster
    • Install a Kubernetes app
    • Uninstall an app
    • Reduce the repetition
    • Say goodbye to values.yaml and hello to flags
    • Override with --set
    • Compounding apps
      • Get a self-hosted TLS registry with authentication
      • Get a public IP for a private cluster and your IngressController
    • Explore the apps
  • Community & contributing
    • Tutorials & community blog posts
      • Watch a video walk-through by Alex Ellis
      • Featured tutorials
      • Official blog posts
      • Community posts
    • Suggest a new app
  • Sponsored apps
  • FAQ
    • How does arkade compare to helm?
    • Is arkade suitable for production use?
    • What is in scope for arkade get?
    • Automatic download of tools
    • Improving the code or fixing an issue
    • Join us on Slack
    • License
  • Catalog of apps and CLIs
    • Catalog of Apps
    • Catalog of CLIs

Support arkade 👋

Arkade is built to save you time so you can focus and get productive quickly.

You can support Alex's work on arkade via GitHub Sponsors.

Or get a copy of his eBook on Go so you can learn how to build tools like k3sup, arkade, and OpenFaaS for yourself:

Should you try arkade?

I was setting up a new dev environment yesterday. Kind, helm, kustomize, kubectl, all this stuff. My take is - arkade is highly underappreciated. I'd spend an hour in the past to install such tools. With arkade it was under ten minutes.

Ivan Velichko, SRE @ Booking.com

Before arkade whenever I used to spin up an instance, I used to go to multiple sites and download the binary. Arkade is one of my favourite tools.

Kumar Anurag - Cloud Native Enthusiast

It's hard to use K8s without Arkade these days. My team at @lftechnology absolutely loves it.

@Yankexe

arkade is really a great tool to install CLI tools, and system packages, check this blog on how to get started with arkade it's a time saver.

Kiran Satya Raj

This is real magic get #kubernetes up and going in a second; then launch #openfaas a free better than lambda solution that uses docker images.

Greg runs Fullstack JS and is a JavaScript developer

for getting the basics installed, nothing beats arkade it can install commonly used cli tools like kubectl locally for you, as well as common k8s pkgs like ingress-nginx or portainer

@arghzero

I finally got around to installing Arkade, super simple! quicker to install this than the argocli standalone commands, but there are lots of handy little tools in there. also, the neat little part about arkade, not only does it make it easy to install a ton of different apps and CLIs you can also get the info on them as well pretty quickly.

Michael Cade @ Kasten

You've to install the latest and greatest tools for your daily @kubernetesio tasks? No problem, check out #arkade the open source #kubernetes marketplace 👍

Thorsten Hans - Cloud Native consultant

If you want to install quickly a new tool in your dev env or in your k8s cluster you can use the Arkade (https://github.com/alexellis/arkade) easy and quick you should it try out! Ps. I contribute to this project 🥰

Carlos Panato - Staff engineer @ Mattermost

arkade is the 'brew install' of Kubernetes. You can install and run an application in a single command. Finally! https://github.com/alexellis/arkade / by Alex Ellis

John Arundel - Cloud consultant, author

Demo

Getting arkade

# Note: you can also run without `sudo` and move the binary yourself
curl -sLS https://get.arkade.dev | sudo sh

arkade --help
ark --help  # a handy alias

# Windows users with Git Bash
curl -sLS https://get.arkade.dev | sh

Windows users: arkade requires bash to be available, therefore Windows users should install and use Git Bash

An alias of ark is created at installation time, so you can also run ark install APP

Usage overview

Arkade can be used to install Kubernetes apps or to download CLI tools.

• arkade install - install a Kubernetes app
• arkade info - see the post installation screen for a Kubernetes app
• arkade get - download a CLI tool
• arkade update - perform a self-update of arkade on MacOS and Linux

An arkade "app" could represent a helm chart such as openfaas/faas-netes, a custom CLI installer such as istioctl, or a set of static manifests (i.e. MetalLB).

An arkade "tool" is a CLI that can be downloaded for your operating system. Arkade downloads statically-linked binaries from their upstream locations on GitHub or the vendor's chosen URL such as with kubectl and terraform.

Did you know? Arkade users run arkade get both on their local workstations, and on their CI runners such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins.

Download CLI tools with arkade

arkade downloads the correct version of a CLI for your OS and CPU.

With automatic detection of: Windows / MacOS / Linux / Intel / ARM.

# Download a binary release of a tool

arkade get kubectl

# Download a specific version of that tool
arkade get kubectl@v1.22.0

# Download multiple tools at once
arkade get kubectl \
  helm \
  istioctl

# Download multiple specific versions
arkade get faas-cli@0.13.15 \
  kubectl@v1.22.0

# Override machine os/arch
arkade get faas-cli \
  --arch arm64 \
  --os linux

# Override machine os/arch
arkade get faas-cli \
  --arch arm64 \
  --os darwin

This is a time saver compared to searching for download pages every time you need a tool.

Files are stored at $HOME/.arkade/bin/

Want to download tools to a custom path such as into the GitHub Actions cached tool folder?

arkade get faas-cli kubectl \
  --path $HOME/runner/_work/_tools

# Usage:
/runner/_work/_tools/faas-cli version

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/runner/_work/_tools
faas-cli version

Think of arkade get TOOL as a doing for CLIs, what arkade install does for helm.

Adding a new tool for download is as simple as editing tools.go.

Click here for the full catalog of CLIs

Install System Packages

System packages are tools designed for installation on a Linux workstation, server or CI runner.

These are a more limited group of applications designed for quick setup, scripting and CI, and generally do not fit into the arkade get pattern, due to additional installation steps or system configuration.

# Show packages
arkade system install

# Show package flags
arkade system install go --help

# Install latest version of Go to /usr/local/bin/go
arkade system install go

# Install Go 1.18 to /tmp/go
arkade system install go \
  --version 1.18 \
  --path /tmp/

# Install containerd for ARM64, 32-bit ARM or x86_64
# with systemd enabled
arkade system install containerd \
  --systemd

Run the following to see what's available arkade system install:

  actions-runner  Install GitHub Actions Runner
  buildkitd       Install Buildkitd
  caddy           Install Caddy Server
  cni             Install CNI plugins
  containerd      Install containerd
  firecracker     Install Firecracker
  gitlab-runner   Install GitLab Runner
  go              Install Go
  node            Install Node.js
  prometheus      Install Prometheus
  pwsh            Install Powershell
  registry        Install registry
  tc-redirect-tap Install tc-redirect-tap

The initial set of system apps is now complete, learn more in the original proposal: Feature: system packages for Linux servers, CI and workstations #654

Install Packages from OCI images

For packages distributed in Open Container Initiative (OCI) images, you can use arkade oci install to extract them to a given folder on your system.

vmmeter is one example of a package that is only published as a container image, which is not released on a GitHub releases page.

arkade oci install ghcr.io/openfaasltd/vmmeter \
  --path /usr/local/bin

• --path - the folder to extract the package to
• --version - the version of the package to extract, if not specified the :latest tag is used
• --arch - the architecture to extract, if not specified the host's architecture is used

Install CLIs during CI with GitHub Actions

• alexellis/arkade-get@master

Example of downloading faas-cli (specific version) and kubectl (latest), putting them into the PATH automatically, and executing one of them in a subsequent step.

    - uses: alexellis/arkade-get@master
      with:
        kubectl: latest
        faas-cli: 0.14.10
    - name: check for faas-cli
      run: |
        faas-cli version

If you just need system applications, you could also try "setup-arkade":

• alexellis/setup-arkade@master

    - uses: alexellis/setup-arkade@v2
    - name: Install containerd and go
      run: |
        arkade system install containerd
        arkade system install go

Bump Helm chart versions

To bump the patch version of your Helm chart, run arkade chart bump -f ./chart/values.yaml. This updates the patch component of the version specified in Chart.yaml.

arkade chart bump -f ./charts/flagger/values.yaml
charts/flagger/Chart.yaml 1.36.0 => 1.37.0

By default, the new version is written to stdout. To bump the version in the file, run the above command with the --write flag. To bump the version in the chart's Chart.yaml only if the chart has any changes, specify the --check-for-updates flag:

arkade chart bump -f ./charts/flagger/values.yaml --check-for-updates
no changes detected in charts/flagger/values.yaml; skipping version bump

The directory that contains the Helm chart should be a Git repository. If the flag is specified, the command runs git diff --exit-code <file> to figure out if the file has any changes.

Verify and upgrade images in Helm charts

There are two commands built into arkade designed for software vendors and open source maintainers.

• arkade helm chart upgrade - run this command to scan for container images and update them automatically by querying a remote registry.
• arkade helm chart verify - after changing the contents of a values.yaml or docker-compose.yaml file, this command will check each image exists on a remote registry

Whilst end-users may use a GitOps-style tool to deploy charts and update their versions, maintainers need to make conscious decisions about when and which images to change within a Helm chart or compose file.

These two features are used by OpenFaaS Ltd on projects and products like OpenFaaS CE/Pro (Serverless platform) and faasd (docker-compose file).

Upgrade images within a Helm chart

With the command arkade chart upgrade you can upgrade the image tags of a Helm chart from within a values.yaml file to the latest available semantically versioned image.

Original YAML file:

stan:
  # Image used for nats deployment when using async with NATS-Streaming.
  image: nats-streaming:0.24.6

Running the command with --verbose prints the upgraded tags to stderr, allowing the output to stdout to be piped to a file.

arkade chart upgrade -f \
  ~/go/src/github.com/openfaas/faas-netes/chart/openfaas/values.yaml \
  --verbose

2023/01/03 10:12:47 Verifying images in: /home/alex/go/src/github.com/openfaas/faas-netes/chart/openfaas/values.yaml
2023/01/03 10:12:47 Found 18 images
2023/01/03 10:12:48 [natsio/prometheus-nats-exporter] 0.8.0 => 0.10.1
2023/01/03 10:12:50 [nats-streaming] 0.24.6 => 0.25.2
2023/01/03 10:12:52 [prom/prometheus] v2.38.0 => 2.41.0
2023/01/03 10:12:54 [prom/alertmanager] v0.24.0 => 0.25.0
2023/01/03 10:12:54 [nats] 2.9.2 => 2.9.10

Updated YAML file printed to console:

stan:
  # Image used for nats deployment when using async with NATS-Streaming.
  image: nats-streaming:0.25.2

Write the updated image tags back to the file:

arkade chart upgrade -f \
  ~/go/src/github.com/openfaas/faasd/docker-compose.yaml \
  --write

Supported:

• image: - at the top level
• component.image: i.e. one level of nesting
• Docker Hub and GitHub Container Registry

Not supported yet:

• Custom strings that don't match the word "image": clientImage:
• Split fields for the image and tag name i.e. image.name and image.tag
• Third-level nesting openfaas.gateway.image

Verify images within a helm chart

The arkade chart verify command validates that all images specified are accessible on a remote registry and takes a values.yaml file as its input.

Successful checking of a chart with image: ghcr.io/openfaas/cron-connector:TAG:

arkade chart verify  -f ~/go/src/github.com/openfaas/faas-netes/chart/cron-connector/values.yaml

echo $?
0

There is an exit code of zero and no output when the check passes.

You can pass --verbose to see a detailed view of what's happening.

Checking of nested components, where two of the images do not exist autoscaler.image and dashboard.image:

arkade chart verify  -f ~/go/src/github.com/openfaas/faas-netes/chart/openfaas/values.yamlecho $?
2 images are missing in /Users/alex/go/src/github.com/openfaas/faas-netes/chart/openfaas/values.yaml

COMPONENT           IMAGE
dashboard           ghcr.io/openfaasltd/openfaas-dashboard:0.9.8
autoscaler          ghcr.io/openfaasltd/autoscaler:0.2.5

Error: verifying failed

echo $?
1

Supported:

• image: - at the top level
• component.image: i.e. one level of nesting

Not supported yet:

• Custom strings that don't match the word "image": clientImage:
• Split fields for the image and tag name i.e. image.name and image.tag
• Third-level nesting openfaas.gateway.image

Installing apps with arkade

You'll need a Kubernetes cluster to arkade. Unlike cloud-based marketplaces, arkade doesn't have any special pre-requirements and can be used with any private or public cluster.

Create a Kubernetes cluster

If you have Docker installed, then you can install Kubernetes using KinD in a matter of moments:

arkade get kubectl@v1.22.0 \
  kind@v0.11.1

kind create cluster

You can also download k3d k3s in the same way with arkade get k3d.

Install a Kubernetes app

No need to worry about whether you're installing to Intel or ARM architecture, the correct values will be set for you automatically.

arkade install openfaas \
  --gateways 2 \
  --load-balancer false

The post-installation message shows you how to connect. And whenever you want to see those details again, just run arkade info openfaas.

There are even more options you can choose with arkade install openfaas --help - the various flags you see map to settings from the helm chart README, that you'd usually have to look up and set via a values.yaml file.

If there's something missing from the list of flags that you need, arkade also supports --set for any arkade app that uses helm. Note that not every app uses helm.

Remember how awkward it was last time you installed the Kubernetes dashboard? And how you could never remember the command to get the token to log in?

arkade install kubernetes-dashboard

Forgot your token? arkade info kubernetes-dashboard

This is an example of an arkade app that uses static YAML manifests instead of helm.

Prefer Portainer? Just run: arkade install portainer

Uninstall an app

Run arkade uninstall or arkade delete for more information on how to remove applications from a Kubernetes cluster.

Reduce the repetition

Normally up to a dozen commands (including finding and downloading helm), now just one. No searching for the correct CRD to apply, no trying to install helm, no trying to find the correct helm repo to add:

arkade install cert-manager

Other common tools:

arkade install ingress-nginx

arkade install metrics-server

Say goodbye to values.yaml and hello to flags

We use strongly typed Go CLI flags, so that you can run --help instead of trawling through countless Helm chart README files to find the correct --set combination for what you want.

arkade install ingress-nginx --help

Install ingress-nginx. This app can be installed with Host networking for
cases where an external LB is not available. please see the --host-mode
flag and the ingress-nginx docs for more info

Usage:
  arkade install ingress-nginx [flags]

Aliases:
  ingress-nginx, nginx-ingress

Examples:
  arkade install ingress-nginx --namespace default

Flags:
  -h, --help               help for ingress-nginx
      --host-mode          If we should install ingress-nginx in host mode.
  -n, --namespace string   The namespace used for installation (default "default")
      --update-repo        Update the helm repo (default true)

Override with --set

You can also set helm overrides, for apps which use helm via --set

ark install openfaas --set faasIdler.dryRun=false

After installation, an info message will be printed with help for usage, you can get back to this at any time via:

arkade info <NAME>

Compounding apps

Apps are easier to discover and install than helm chart which involve many more manual steps, however when you compound apps together, they really save you time.

Get a self-hosted TLS registry with authentication

Here's how you can get a self-hosted Docker registry with TLS and authentication in just 5 commands on an empty cluster:

Here's how you would bootstrap OpenFaaS with TLS:

arkade install ingress-nginx
arkade install cert-manager
arkade install openfaas
arkade install openfaas-ingress \
  --email web@example.com \
  --domain openfaas.example.com

And here's what it looks like for a private Docker registry with authentication enabled:

arkade install ingress-nginx
arkade install cert-manager
arkade install docker-registry
arkade install docker-registry-ingress \
  --email web@example.com \
  --domain reg.example.com

Get a public IP for a private cluster and your IngressController

And if you're running on a private cloud, on-premises or on your laptop, you can simply add the inlets-operator using inlets to get a secure TCP tunnel and a public IP address.

arkade install inlets-operator \
  --access-token $HOME/digitalocean-token \
  --region lon1 \
  --provider digitalocean

This makes your cluster behave like it was on a public cloud and LoadBalancer IPs go from Pending to a real, functioning IP.

Explore the apps

You can view the various apps available with arkade install / --help, more are available when you run the command yourself.

arkade install --help
ark --help

Examples:
  arkade install
  arkade install openfaas --helm3 --gateways=2
  arkade install inlets-operator --token-file $HOME/do-token

See the full catalog of apps: See all apps

Community & contributing

Tutorials & community blog posts

Watch a video walk-through by Alex Ellis

Featured tutorials

• arkade by example — Kubernetes apps, the easy way 😎 - Alex Ellis
• Walk-through — install Kubernetes to your Raspberry Pi in 15 minutes
• Get a TLS-enabled Docker registry in 5 minutes - Alex Ellis
• Get TLS for OpenFaaS the easy way with arkade - Alex Ellis

Official blog posts

• Two year update: Building an Open Source Marketplace for Kubernetes
• Why did the OpenFaaS community build arkade and what's in it for you? - Alex Ellis

Community posts

• A bit of Istio before tea-time - Alex Ellis
• Kubernetes: Automatic Let's Encrypt Certificates for Services with arkade
• Introducing Arkade - The Kubernetes app installer - Alistair Hey
• Portainer for kubernetes in less than 60 seconds!! - by Saiyam Pathak
• Video walk-through with DJ Adams - Pi & Kubernetes with k3s, k3sup, arkade and OpenFaaS
• Coffee chat: Easy way to install Kubernetes Apps - arkade (ark) by Sachin Jha
• Arkade & OpenFaaS: serverless on the spot by Blaise Pabon
• "Tool of the Day" with Adrian Goins from Rancher Labs

Suggest a new app

To suggest a new app, please check past issues and raise an issue for it. Think also whether your app suggestion would be a good candidate for a Sponsored App.

Sponsored apps

You can now propose your project or product as a Sponsored App. Sponsored Apps work just like any other app that we've curated, however they will have a note next to them in the app description (sponsored) and a link to your chosen site upon installation. An app sponsorship can be purchased for a minimum of 12 months and includes free development of the Sponsored App, with ongoing support via GitHub for the Sponsored App for the duration only. Ongoing support will be limited to a set amount of hours per month.

When your sponsorship expires the Sponsored App will be removed from arkade, and the ongoing support will cease. A Sponsored App can be renewed 60 days prior to expiration subject to a separate agreement and payment.

Example:

arkade VENDOR install PRODUCT
arkade acmeco install dashboard

Contact OpenFaas Ltd to find out how you can have your Sponsored App added to arkade.

FAQ

How does arkade compare to helm?

In the same way that brew uses git and Makefiles to compile applications for your Mac, arkade uses upstream helm charts and kubectl to install applications to your Kubernetes cluster. arkade exposes strongly-typed flags for the various popular options for helm charts, and enables easier discovery through arkade install --help and arkade install APP --help.

Is arkade suitable for production use?

If you consider helm suitable, and kubectl then yes, arkade by definition uses those tools and the upstream artifacts of OSS projects.

Do you want to run arkade in a CI or CD pipeline? Go ahead.

What is in scope for arkade get?

Generally speaking, tools that are used with the various arkade apps or with Kubernetes are in scope. If you want to propose a tool, raise a GitHub issue.

What about package management? arkade get provides a faster alternative to package managers like apt and brew, you're free to use either or both at the same time.

Automatic download of tools

When required, tools, CLIs, and the helm binaries are downloaded and extracted to $HOME/.arkade.

If installing a tool which uses helm3, arkade will check for a cached version and use that, otherwise it will download it on demand.

Did you accidentally run arkade as root? Running as root is not required, and will mean your KUBECONFIG environment variable will be ignored. You can revert this using the notes on release 0.1.18.

Improving the code or fixing an issue

Before contributing code, please see the CONTRIBUTING guide. Note that arkade uses the same guide as inlets.dev.

Both Issues and PRs have their own templates. Please fill out the whole template.

All commits must be signed-off as part of the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO)

Join us on Slack

Join #contributors at slack.openfaas.io

License

MIT

Catalog of apps and CLIs

An app is software or an add-on for your Kubernetes cluster.

A CLI or "tool" is a command line tool that you run directly on your own workstation or a CI runner.

Catalog of Apps

There are 52 apps that you can install on your cluster.

Note to contributors, run go build && ./arkade install --print-table to generate this list

Catalog of CLIs

Note to contributors, run go build && ./arkade get --format markdown to generate this list