Getting Started

This document showcases how to get started with Skaffold using Docker and Kubernetes command-line tool, kubectl. Aside from Docker and kubectl, Skaffold also supports a variety of other tools and workflows; see How-to Guides and Tutorials for more information.

In this quickstart, you will:

• Install Skaffold,
• Download a sample go app,
• Use skaffold dev to build and deploy your app every time your code changes,
• Use skaffold run to build and deploy your app once, on demand.

Before you begin

• Install Docker
• Install kubectl
• Configure kubectl to connect to a Kubernetes cluster. You can use
  • any Kubernetes platform with Skaffold; see Picking the Right Solution from Kubernetes documentation for instructions on choosing the right platform.
  • Google Kubernetes Engine is a hosted Kubernetes solution. To set up kubectl with Google Kubernetes Engine, see Kubernetes Engine Quickstart.
  • Minikube is a local Kubernetes solution best for development and testing. To set up kubectl with Minikube, see Installing Minikube.

Installing Skaffold

curl -Lo skaffold https://storage.googleapis.com/skaffold/releases/latest/skaffold-linux-amd64
chmod +x skaffold
sudo mv skaffold /usr/local/bin

curl -Lo skaffold https://storage.googleapis.com/skaffold/builds/latest/skaffold-linux-amd64
chmod +x skaffold
sudo mv skaffold /usr/local/bin

brew install skaffold

curl -Lo skaffold https://storage.googleapis.com/skaffold/releases/latest/skaffold-darwin-amd64
chmod +x skaffold
sudo mv skaffold /usr/local/bin

curl -Lo skaffold https://storage.googleapis.com/skaffold/builds/latest/skaffold-darwin-amd64
chmod +x skaffold
sudo mv skaffold /usr/local/bin

choco install skaffold

Downloading the sample app

1. Clone the Skaffold repository:

   git clone https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold

2. Change to the examples/getting-started directory.

   cd examples/getting-started

skaffold dev: Build and deploy your app every time your code changes

Run skaffold dev --default-repo <myrepo> to build and deploy your app continuously. The --default-repo functionality enables pushing images to your own repository instead of the default gcr.io/k8s-skaffold repo. You should see some outputs similar to the following entries:

Starting build...
Found [minikube] context, using local docker daemon.
Sending build context to Docker daemon  6.144kB
Step 1/5 : FROM golang:1.9.4-alpine3.7
 ---> fb6e10bf973b
Step 2/5 : WORKDIR /go/src/github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/examples/getting-started
 ---> Using cache
 ---> e9d19a54595b
Step 3/5 : CMD ./app
 ---> Using cache
 ---> 154b6512c4d9
Step 4/5 : COPY main.go .
 ---> Using cache
 ---> e097086e73a7
Step 5/5 : RUN go build -o app main.go
 ---> Using cache
 ---> 9c4622e8f0e7
Successfully built 9c4622e8f0e7
Successfully tagged 930080f0965230e824a79b9e7eccffbd:latest
Successfully tagged <myrepo>/gcr.io/k8s-skaffold/skaffold-example:9c4622e8f0e7b5549a61a503bf73366a9cf7f7512aa8e9d64f3327a3c7fded1b
Build complete in 657.426821ms
Starting deploy...
Deploying k8s-pod.yaml...
Deploy complete in 173.770268ms
[getting-started] Hello world!

skaffold dev monitors your code repository and perform a Skaffold workflow every time a change is detected. skaffold.yaml provides specifications of the workflow, which, in this example, is

• Building a Docker image from the source using the Dockerfile
• Tagging the Docker image with the Sha256 Hash of its contents
• (If you use a hosted Kubernetes solution) Pushing the Docker image to the external Docker image registry
• Updating the Kubernetes manifest, k8s-pod.yaml, to use the image built previously
• Deploying the Kubernetes manifest using kubectl apply -f
• Streaming the logs back from the deployed app

Let’s re-trigger the workflow just by a single code change! Update main.go as follows:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"time"
)

func main() {
	for {
		fmt.Println("Hello Skaffold!")
		time.Sleep(time.Second * 1)
	}
}

The moment you save the file, Skaffold will repeat the workflow described in skaffold.yaml and eventually re-deploy your application. Once the pipeline is completed, you should see updated outputs in the terminal:

[getting-started] Hello Skaffold!

✨

skaffold run: Build and deploy your app once, on demand

If you prefer building and deploying once at a time, run command skaffold run. Skaffold will perform the workflow described in skaffold.yaml exactly once.

What’s next

For more in-depth topics of Skaffold, explore Skaffold Concepts: Configuration, Skaffold Concepts: Workflow, and Skaffold Concepts: Architecture.

To learn more about how Skaffold builds, tags, and deploys your app, see the How-to Guides on using Builders, Taggers, and Deployers.

Skaffold Tutorials details some of the common use cases of Skaffold.