Installation

KICK ships as a single controller plus two cluster-scoped CRDs (KickPolicy, KickRequest). The recommended install is the Helm chart.

Prerequisites

Kubernetes 1.28+
Helm 3.12+
(optional) Argo CD, if you want to gate restarts behind GitOps

Helm install

helm install kick oci://ghcr.io/corewire/charts/kick \
  --namespace kick-system \
  --create-namespace

That installs the CRDs, RBAC, and the controller Deployment.

Common values

Override with --set key=value or a -f values.yaml file:

Value	Default	Description
`image.repository`	`ghcr.io/corewire/kick`	Controller image.
`image.tag`	chart `appVersion`	Controller image tag.
`integrations.argocd.enabled`	`true`	Grant RBAC to read Argo CD `Application`/`AppProject` for GitOps gating.
`integrations.argocd.applicationNamespaces`	`[]`	Namespaces KICK may read Argo CD objects from. Empty means Argo CD namespace only.
`integrations.flux.enabled`	`true`	Grant RBAC to read Flux `Kustomizations`/`HelmReleases` for GitOps gating.
`integrations.kargo.enabled`	`false`	Grant RBAC to read Kargo `Stages`/`Promotions` for GitOps gating.
`leaderElection.enabled`	`true`	Enable leader election for HA.
`replicaCount`	`1`	Controller replicas.

If you do not use Argo CD, disable its RBAC:

helm install kick oci://ghcr.io/corewire/charts/kick \
  --namespace kick-system --create-namespace \
  --set integrations.argocd.enabled=false

Upgrading CRDs

Helm installs the CRDs on first install but does not upgrade them on helm upgrade. When a release changes the CRDs, re-apply them explicitly:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corewire/kick/main/config/crd/bases/kick.corewire.io_kickpolicies.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corewire/kick/main/config/crd/bases/kick.corewire.io_kickrequests.yaml

From source (local development)

For a throwaway Kind cluster with the controller built from your working tree:

make kind-create   # create the kind-kick-dev cluster
make kind-load     # build and load the controller image
make install       # install CRDs + controller

Local defaults: context kind-kick-dev, kubeconfig .kubeconfig-kind-kick-dev. You can also install the chart directly from the repo checkout:

helm install kick charts/kick --namespace kick-system --create-namespace

Verify

kubectl -n kick-system get pods
kubectl get crd | grep kick.corewire.io

The controller Pod should be Running and both CRDs (kickpolicies, kickrequests) present.

Next steps

Quickstart — see KICK restart a Deployment when a Secret changes.
Concepts — how discovery, freshness, and GitOps gating work.

Last updated on August 21, 2026

Quickstart