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This guide walks you through the three stages of setting up Ankra: building your stack in the UI, connecting GitOps for automation, and using AI to manage your infrastructure.

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1. Connect a Cluster

Everything starts with a cluster. Import an existing one or provision a new managed cluster.
Import any Kubernetes cluster EKS, GKE, AKS, on-prem, k3s, minikube, or kind.
1

Create the cluster in Ankra

Go to Clusters and click Import Cluster. Give it a name.
2

Install the Ankra agent

Ankra generates a Helm command for your cluster. Run it wherever you have kubectl access:
helm install ankra-agent oci://ghcr.io/ankraio/ankra-agent \
-set apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY
The agent connects your cluster to the platform securely. It works behind firewalls, NATs, and private networks.
3

Verify the connection

Your cluster appears in the dashboard within seconds. You now have full visibility into workloads, resources, and events.

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2. Build Your Stack

A Stack is a collection of Helm charts, manifests, and variables that define your Kubernetes environment. Build stacks visually or with AI assistance.
1

Open the Stack Builder

Navigate to your cluster → Stacks → Create Stack. The visual canvas opens.
2

Add components

Click + Add to compose your stack: Add-ons Helm charts like Prometheus, Grafana, NGINX Ingress, cert-manager Manifests custom Kubernetes YAML (namespaces, RBAC, ConfigMaps, CRDs)Drag components onto the canvas and connect them to define deployment order.
3

Or, use the AI Assistant

Press ⌘+J and describe what you need:“I need a monitoring stack with Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki for a production cluster with 30-day retention”The AI recommends components, configurations, dependencies, and deployment order tailored to your cluster.
4

Configure and deploy

Click any component to edit its values. Use variables with ${{ ankra.variable_name }} for environment-specific configuration. Click Create Stack to save and deploy.
Stacks can be cloned across clusters replicate a stack from dev to staging to production. See Clone a Stack.

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3. Connect GitOps

Connect a GitHub repository to version-control your stacks and enable automatic deployments. This is where Ankra integrates with your existing CI/CD.
1

Connect your repository

Go to your cluster → Settings → Integration. Select a GitHub credential (or add one) and choose the repository where Ankra will store your cluster configuration.Ankra installs ArgoCD and the GitOps engine on your cluster automatically.
2

Your stacks are now in Git

Every stack you build is exported as Helm values and manifests to your repository under clusters/{cluster-name}/. Changes in either direction sync automatically.
3

Wire up your CI/CD pipeline

Your existing CI pipeline can now deploy through Ankra:
  1. CI builds a container image and pushes to your registry
  2. CI commits the new image tag to the GitOps repo
  3. Ankra detects the change and deploys to your cluster
See the CI/CD Pipeline Guide for a full walkthrough with GitHub Actions.
4

Monitor sync status

Go to your cluster → Settings → GitOps to view sync status, history, and any errors. Every sync is tracked with commit SHA, trigger source, and timestamp.

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GitOps file format

For advanced setups, define your clusters declaratively using include paths to keep configuration modular: 
apiVersion: v1
kind: ImportCluster
metadata:
  name: my-cluster
spec:
  git_repository:
    provider: github
    credential_name: my-credential
    branch: main
    repository: my-org/infra-gitops
  stacks:
 name: platform-stack
    manifests:
 include: manifests/
    addons:
 include: addons/
Different teams can own different YAML files in the same repo no merge conflicts, no monolithic configs.

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4. Manage with AI

With your cluster connected and stacks deployed, Ankra’s AI capabilities unlock powerful management and debugging workflows.

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Ask the AI anything

Press ⌘+J from anywhere in the platform. The AI is page-aware it automatically knows what you’re looking at.
You’re viewingWhat the AI already knows
A crashing podIts logs, events, manifest, resource usage, and parent deployment
A deploymentAll replicas, rollout status, associated services, and recent changes
A stackInstalled add-ons, Helm values, deployment history, and dependencies
Try these:
  • “Why is my pod crashing?”
  • “Scale this deployment to 5 replicas”
  • “What changed in the last hour that could cause 503 errors?”
  • “Create a Redis stack with persistence enabled”

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Enable proactive AI Insights

Navigate to Organisation Settings → General → toggle Proactive AI Insights. The AI continuously scans your clusters and surfaces issues with root cause analysis, remediation commands, and MTTR analytics before they become incidents.

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Set up alerts with AI analysis

Configure alert rules on your cluster. When alerts trigger, Ankra’s AI automatically collects cluster data and generates structured incident reports with root cause, affected resources, and recommended actions.

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What’s Next

Build a Monitoring Stack

Deploy Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki with AI assistance.

CI/CD Pipeline

Full walkthrough: connect app repos to Ankra GitOps with GitHub Actions.

AI Assistant

Deep dive into AI-powered troubleshooting, stack building, and incident triangulation.

CLI Reference

Manage clusters, chat with AI, clone stacks, and encrypt secrets from the terminal.

Variables & Secrets

Parameterise your stacks with organisation, cluster, and stack-level variables.

Clone Clusters

Replicate entire cluster configurations across environments.
Still have questions? Join our Slack community and we’ll help out.