mock-cluster

SkillCloud & infra

Stand up or scale the local CAPD mock cluster and deploy the bex operator into it. Use when the user asks to create, inspect, or resize the repository's local development cluster. Optional argument: scale N.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the mock-cluster skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by bex-co/bex in .claude/skills/mock-cluster/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Bring up the local mock of the Hetzner substrate and deploy the bex operator into it.

If $ARGUMENTS is scale N: just run bash scripts/mock-cluster.sh scale N, then show kubectl get nodes (with KUBECONFIG=infra/local/bex.kubeconfig) and stop.

Otherwise, run the full bring-up:

  1. bash scripts/mock-cluster.sh — kind infra cluster + Cluster API + CAPD app cluster, plus the app-cluster baseline the operator needs: Calico, coredns/calico-kube-controllers control-plane pins, local-path default StorageClass, cert-manager (prod's pinned version; make deploy's webhook cert requires it). This can take several minutes; it writes the app-cluster kubeconfig to infra/local/bex.kubeconfig.
  2. Use that kubeconfig for every following command: export KUBECONFIG=$PWD/infra/local/bex.kubeconfig (or --kubeconfig). Never print its contents.
  3. Build and load the operator image (CAPD nodes can't pull local-only images):
    • ( cd lego/operator && make docker-build IMG=bex-operator:dev )
    • docker save bex-operator:dev -o /tmp/bex-op.tar
    • For each node (strip the node/ prefix — kubectl get nodes -o name returns node/<name> but docker cp/docker exec need the bare container name):
      for n in $(kubectl get nodes -o name | cut -d/ -f2); do
        docker cp /tmp/bex-op.tar "$n":/op.tar && docker exec "$n" ctr -n k8s.io images import /op.tar
      done
      
  4. ( cd lego/operator && make deploy IMG=bex-operator:dev ) — deploys to ns bex-system with BEX_RUNTIME=kubernetes. The bex-ssh-gateway IngressRouteTCP fails without Traefik CRDs — expected and harmless on the mock; everything else applies. Then kubectl apply -f deploy/gitops/base/operator-apps-rbac.yaml — the apps-namespace bex-operator-apps Role/RoleBinding is Argo-managed in prod and absent from the operator's kustomize config; without it the manager crashloops on "failed to wait for … caches to sync" (its namespace-scoped Secret/Job watches in default are forbidden; w1/043).
  5. Local-CAPD-only fixes (re-apply all three after every make deploy — it reverts them; w1/043):
    • Label the control-plane node into the platform pool (the manifest's nodeSelector is bex.co/pool=platform, and the operator must sit on the control-plane node because OrbStack/Calico can't route cross-node pod→apiserver; see docs/ADR004-app-deployment.md): kubectl label node <control-plane-node> bex.co/pool=platform --overwrite
    • Pin the operator to the control-plane node:
      kubectl -n bex-system patch deploy bex-controller-manager --type merge -p \
       '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"nodeSelector":{"node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane":""},
        "tolerations":[{"key":"node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane","effect":"NoSchedule"}]}}}}'
      
    • The manifest sets imagePullPolicy: Always, which can never be satisfied by the ctr-imported local image (ErrImagePull) — override it:
      kubectl -n bex-system patch deploy bex-controller-manager --type strategic -p \
       '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"containers":[{"name":"manager","imagePullPolicy":"IfNotPresent"}]}}}}'
      
  6. kubectl -n bex-system rollout status deploy/bex-controller-manager — wait for Ready.

Finish by reporting: node list, operator pod status, and the one-liners to deploy an App (/deploy-app) and to scale machines (/mock-cluster scale N).

Signals

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Last commit
Sep 2026
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Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
mock-cluster
Source
github.com/bex-co/bex