Configuration Reference

Note

kinder accepts the same cluster configuration format as kind. Any option supported by kind in a kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4 config file also works with kinder. This page documents the kinder-specific addons extension.

Cluster Configuration

kinder uses the same kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4 API version as kind. A minimal configuration file looks like:

apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
kind: Cluster

Complete Configuration Example

A complete kinder configuration showing all addon fields:

# Full kinder v1alpha4 configuration -- all fields shown
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
kind: Cluster
addons:
  # Core addons (always useful -- enabled by default)
  metalLB: true
  metricsServer: true
  coreDNSTuning: true
  localPath: true
  # Optional addons (enabled by default -- disable for lightweight clusters)
  envoyGateway: true
  dashboard: true
  localRegistry: true
  certManager: true

All addons enabled by default

All 8 addons are installed by default. The core group (MetalLB, Metrics Server, CoreDNS, Local Path Provisioner) is always useful for any workflow. The optional group (Envoy Gateway, Headlamp, Local Registry, cert-manager) is also enabled by default but commonly disabled for lightweight or CI clusters using --profile minimal or --profile ci.

Using a Config File

Pass a configuration file to kinder create cluster with the --config flag:

kinder create cluster --config cluster.yaml

Addon Fields

Core Addons

These addons are always useful regardless of your workload.

Field	Type	Default	Description
metalLB	bool	true	Install MetalLB for LoadBalancer IP assignment
metricsServer	bool	true	Install Metrics Server for kubectl top support
coreDNSTuning	bool	true	Apply CoreDNS tuning for optimised local DNS caching
localPath	bool	true	Install local-path-provisioner — local-path as the default StorageClass. Set to false to restore the legacy standard StorageClass

Optional Addons

These addons are powerful but commonly disabled for minimal or CI clusters.

Field	Type	Default	Description
envoyGateway	bool	true	Install Envoy Gateway for Gateway API ingress
dashboard	bool	true	Install Headlamp web dashboard
localRegistry	bool	true	Run a private container registry at localhost:5001 with dev tool auto-discovery
certManager	bool	true	Install cert-manager with a self-signed ClusterIssuer

Disabling Addons

To create a cluster without specific addons, set the corresponding fields to false:

apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
kind: Cluster
addons:
  dashboard: false
  envoyGateway: false

This creates a cluster with MetalLB, Metrics Server, CoreDNS tuning, Local Registry, and cert-manager, but skips the Dashboard and Envoy Gateway.

To skip all addons and get a plain kind-equivalent cluster:

apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
kind: Cluster
addons:
  metalLB: false
  envoyGateway: false
  metricsServer: false
  coreDNSTuning: false
  localPath: false
  dashboard: false
  localRegistry: false
  certManager: false

Compatibility with kind

Because kinder uses kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4 as its API version, existing kind configuration files work without modification. The addons section is ignored by kind and is only processed by kinder.