As an alternative to Helm, Flagger can be installed with Kustomize. Note that you'll need kubectl 1.14 or newer that comes with the Kustomize commands.

Service mesh specific installers

Install Flagger for Istio:

kubectl apply -k github.com/weaveworks/flagger//kustomize/istio

This deploys Flagger in the istio-system namespace and sets the metrics server URL to http://prometheus.istio-system:9090.

Install Flagger for Linkerd:

kubectl apply -k github.com/weaveworks/flagger//kustomize/linkerd

This deploys Flagger in the linkerd namespace and sets the metrics server URL to http://linkerd-prometheus.linkerd:9090.

Generic installer

Install Flagger and Prometheus:

kubectl apply -k github.com/weaveworks/flagger//kustomize/kubernetes

This deploys Flagger and Prometheus in the flagger-system namespace, sets the metrics server URL to http://flagger-prometheus.flagger-system:9090 and the mesh provider to kubernetes.

The Prometheus instance has a two hours data retention and is configured to scrape all pods in your cluster that have the prometheus.io/scrape: "true" annotation.

To target a different provider you can specify it in the canary custom resource:

apiVersion: flagger.app/v1alpha3
kind: Canary
metadata:
  name: app
  namespace: test
spec:
  # can be: kubernetes, appmesh, nginx, gloo
  # use the kubernetes provider for Blue/Green style deployments
  provider: nginx

Configure Slack notifications

Create a kustomization file using flagger as base:

cat > kustomization.yaml <<EOF
namespace: istio-system
bases:
  - github.com/weaveworks/flagger/kustomize/base/flagger
patchesStrategicMerge:
  - patch.yaml
EOF

Create a patch and enable Slack notifications by setting the slack channel and hook URL:

cat > patch.yaml <<EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: flagger
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: flagger
          args:
            - -mesh-provider=istio
            - -metrics-server=http://prometheus.istio-system:9090
            - -slack-user=flagger
            - -slack-channel=alerts
            - -slack-url=https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR/SLACK/WEBHOOK
EOF

Install Flagger for Istio with Slack notifications:

kubectl apply -k .

Configure MS Teams notifications

Create a kustomization file using flagger as base:

cat > kustomization.yaml <<EOF
namespace: linkerd
bases:
  - github.com/weaveworks/flagger/kustomize/base/flagger
patchesStrategicMerge:
  - patch.yaml
EOF

Create a patch and set the MS Teams webhook URL:

cat > patch.yaml <<EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: flagger
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: flagger
          args:
            - -mesh-provider=linkerd
            - -metrics-server=http://linkerd-prometheus:9090
            - -msteams-url=https://outlook.office.com/webhook/YOUR/TEAMS/WEBHOOK
EOF

Install Flagger for Linkerd with MS Teams notifications:

kubectl apply -k .