kind-cluster

name	kind-cluster
description	Create, deploy to, reload, and tear down a local kind cluster running Calico from locally-built images. Use when the user wants to bring up a test cluster, try a change on a real cluster, reload a rebuilt image onto kind, or destroy the cluster.

Kind Cluster Development

Kind targets are defined in lib.Makefile and orchestrated from the root Makefile. Scripts and infrastructure live in hack/test/kind/, with cluster config, Helm values, and supporting manifests under hack/test/kind/infra/.

Run all of these from the repo root.

make kind-up                # Build all images + create cluster + deploy Calico (full bringup)
make kind-cluster-create    # Create the kind cluster (no images, no Calico)
make kind-build-images      # Build all container images needed for the kind cluster
make kind-deploy            # Load images + install Calico via Helm + wait for readiness
make kind-reload            # Reload only changed images onto an existing cluster (incremental)
make kind-cluster-destroy   # Tear down the kind cluster
make kind-down              # Alias for kind-cluster-destroy

Image loading is incremental: kind-reload and kind-deploy compare local Docker image IDs against what is already on the cluster and only transfer the ones that changed. So the normal edit/test loop is make -C <component> build followed by make kind-reload, not a full kind-up.

Override the cluster name with KIND_NAME=<name> if you need more than one cluster at a time.