dynamo/deploy/operator

Dynamo Kubernetes Operator

A Kubernetes Operator to manage all Dynamo pipelines using custom resources.

Overview

This operator automates the deployment and lifecycle management of Dynamo resources in Kubernetes clusters:

• DynamoGraphDeploymentRequest (DGDR) - Simplified SLA-driven deployment interface
• DynamoGraphDeployment (DGD) - Direct deployment configuration

Built with Kubebuilder, it follows Kubernetes best practices and supports declarative configuration through CustomResourceDefinitions (CRDs).

Custom Resources

• DynamoGraphDeploymentRequest: High-level interface for SLA-driven configuration generation. Automatically handles profiling and generates an optimized DGD spec based on your performance requirements.
• DynamoGraphDeployment: Lower-level interface for direct deployment configuration with full control over all parameters.

Developer guide

Pre-requisites

• Go >= 1.25
• Kubebuilder

Build

make

Local development with Tilt

Tilt provides a live-reload development loop for the operator. It compiles the Go binary locally, builds a minimal Docker image, renders the production Helm chart, and deploys everything to your cluster. On code changes, Tilt recompiles and live-updates the binary without a full image rebuild — giving fast iteration on controller logic against a real cluster.

Prerequisites

The following tools must be installed and available in your PATH before running tilt up:

Tool	Version	Purpose	Install
Go	≥ 1.25	Compiles the manager binary locally	go.dev/doc/install
Tilt	latest	Live-reload dev loop orchestrator	docs.tilt.dev/install
Helm	v3	Renders the platform Helm chart	helm.sh/docs/intro/install
kubectl	≥ 1.29	Applies CRDs and creates the namespace	kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools
Docker	latest	Builds the live-update container image	docs.docker.com/get-docker

Conditional prerequisites (only needed when skip_codegen: false, the default):

Tool	Version	Purpose	Install
yq	v4+	Post-processes generated CRD YAML	make ensure-yq or github.com/mikefarah/yq
Python 3 + pydantic	3.x	Generates Pydantic models from Go types (make generate)	pip install pydantic

Tip: Set skip_codegen: true in tilt-settings.yaml to skip CRD/code generation on every reload. This removes the yq/Python requirement and speeds up iteration when you haven't changed API types.

Cluster: You need a Kubernetes cluster (kind, minikube, GKE, EKS, bare-metal, etc.) with a kubeconfig context that Tilt can reach. If your cluster has GPUs and you want to test DGD/DGDR workloads end-to-end, the NVIDIA GPU Operator should be installed on the cluster.

Setup

1. Create tilt-settings.yaml in deploy/operator/ with this minimal config:

   allowed_contexts:
     - h100                 # Change to your Kubernetes context
   
   registry: docker.io/myuser  # Change to your Docker registry
   

2. Run Tilt:

   cd deploy/operator
   tilt up
   

   The Tilt UI will open at http://localhost:10350 showing resource status and logs.

Features

• Fast iteration: On code changes, Tilt recompiles the manager binary and live-updates it into the running container — no full image rebuild needed
• Real cluster testing: Reconciles against your actual Kubernetes cluster (kind, minikube, GKE, AKS, etc.)
• CRD + Helm rendering: Automatically applies CRDs and renders the platform Helm chart with your configuration
• Infrastructure toggles: Control NATS, etcd, KAI scheduler, and Grove via tilt-settings.yaml

Optional configuration

Additional settings available in tilt-settings.yaml:

# Infrastructure toggles (control which components are deployed)
enable_nats: true              # Enable NATS messaging (default: true, required for DGD/DGDR)
enable_etcd: false             # Enable etcd service discovery (default: false)
enable_kai_scheduler: false    # Enable KAI GPU-aware scheduler (default: false)
enable_grove: false            # Enable Grove orchestrator (default: false)

# Other settings
namespace: dynamo-system       # Kubernetes namespace for operator deployment
skip_codegen: false            # Skip code generation for faster reloads if API unchanged
image_pull_secret: ""          # Name of Secret for private Docker registries
helm_values: {}                # Extra Helm value overrides for platform chart
operator_version: "0.0.0-dev"  # Override operator version (default: from Chart.yaml)

Install

See Dynamo Kubernetes Platform Installation Guide for installation instructions.