Prerequisites

Admiral has two deployment profiles, demo and production, each with different prerequisites. Start with demo mode to evaluate the platform, then graduate to production when you're ready.

Demo mode prerequisites

Demo mode uses KinD (Kubernetes in Docker) and built-in subcharts for PostgreSQL, MinIO, and Dex. Everything runs on your local machine with a single command.

Required tools

Tool	Minimum version	Purpose
Docker	20.10+	Container runtime for KinD
KinD	0.20+	Local Kubernetes cluster
Helm	3.12+	Chart installation
kubectl	1.28+	Cluster interaction

Resource requirements

A demo cluster runs comfortably on a laptop with:

CPU: 2 cores available to Docker
Memory: 4 GB available to Docker
Disk: 2 GB free for images and persistent volumes

Demo mode uses nip.io for DNS resolution, mapping admiral.127.0.0.1.nip.io to 127.0.0.1. Your machine must be able to resolve *.nip.io hostnames. If your network blocks wildcard DNS, you can add a manual /etc/hosts entry:

127.0.0.1 admiral.127.0.0.1.nip.io

Ports 80 and 443 on localhost must be available for the ingress controller.

Production prerequisites

Production deployments connect Admiral to your own externally managed services.

Kubernetes cluster

Kubernetes 1.28+ (tested through 1.32)
Helm 3.12+
An ingress controller (NGINX, Traefik, etc.) or Gateway API implementation
TLS termination configured at the ingress layer

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL 14+ (15 or 16 recommended)
A dedicated database and user with full DDL privileges (Admiral runs schema migrations automatically)
Connection credentials available as a Kubernetes Secret or inline values
SSL/TLS recommended for production connections

Object storage

One of the following:

Backend	Requirements
S3-compatible (MinIO, Ceph, etc.)	Endpoint URL, access key, secret key
AWS S3	Region, bucket names, IAM credentials or IRSA
Google Cloud Storage	Project ID, service account JSON key

Admiral uses two buckets (manifests and revisions) which you must create in advance. Bucket names are configurable.

OIDC identity provider

Admiral authenticates users through OpenID Connect. In production, connect to your organization's identity provider:

Any OIDC-compliant provider (Okta, Auth0, Azure AD, Google Workspace, Keycloak, etc.)
A registered client application with authorization_code grant type
Client ID, client secret, and issuer URL
Redirect URL set to https://<your-admiral-host>/api/v1/auth/callback

You can also run the built-in Dex provider in production as a lightweight IdP, though most teams prefer to integrate with their existing identity system.

DNS and TLS

A DNS record pointing to your ingress or load balancer
A TLS certificate for your Admiral hostname (use cert-manager or bring your own)