homelab/_FLUX_START_HERE.md

Flux CD Integration Planning — START HERE

What Just Happened?

Your subagent completed comprehensive planning documentation for integrating Flux CD v2 with your homelab's helmfile-based infrastructure.

Three complete documents created:

1. FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md (1,810 lines)

   • Full technical specification with code examples
   • Phase-by-phase implementation roadmap
   • Conflict resolution & safety procedures
   • Testing strategy & risk assessment

2. FLUX_PLANNING_SUMMARY.md (351 lines)

   • Executive overview for stakeholders
   • Decision matrices & quick reference
   • Timeline & effort estimates
   • Success metrics

3. FLUX_PLANNING_INDEX.md (356 lines)

   • Navigation guide across all documents
   • Quick start for different audiences
   • FAQ & next steps

Total: 2,517 lines of planning documentation

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The Plan in 60 Seconds

What Problem Are We Solving?

Current helmfile workflow:

• Manual helmfile apply required
• No automatic drift detection
• No Git audit trail for changes
• No approval gates
• Hard to scale to multi-cluster

What's the Solution?

Deploy Flux CD v2 (GitOps) to:

• Continuously reconcile cluster state from Git
• Auto-detect & correct drift
• Maintain full audit trail
• Support staged rollouts with approval gates
• Keep helmfile.yaml.gotmpl as fallback during transition

How Do We Do It?

3 phases, 6–8 weeks, ~99 hours:

Phase	Timeline	Work	Goal
1	Weeks 1–2	Bootstrap Flux + helmfile bridge	Zero breaking changes
2	Weeks 3–6	Migrate 23 releases to HelmRelease CRDs	Parallel migration (4 streams)
3	Weeks 7–8	Enable auto-sync, metrics, runbooks	Full GitOps readiness

Key: No downtime. Helmfile stays functional as fallback throughout.

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Architecture Simplified

Git (Forgejo) ← Source of Truth
  └─→ Flux Reconciliation Loop (every 5 min)
      └─→ Kubernetes Cluster
          └─→ 23 Helm Releases (reconciled state)

That's it. Flux watches Git. When you push changes, Flux applies them. If someone manually changes the cluster (kubectl), Flux auto-corrects on next reconciliation.

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Key Decisions (No Surprises)

Decision	Choice	Reasoning
Controller	Flux v2	Stable, battle-tested; v3 still beta
Helm	HelmRelease CRDs	Preserves values-based workflow
Secrets	SOPS + age	Git-stored, audited, simple
Rollout	Phased (3×8 weeks)	Lower risk, easier debugging

All decisions explained in detail in FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §3 (Architecture Decision Matrix).

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What You Get

By End of Phase 1 (Week 2)

• ✅ Flux running in cluster
• ✅ Git syncing every 60 seconds
• ✅ Helmfile still works as fallback
• ✅ Zero disruption to running workloads

By End of Phase 2 (Week 6)

• ✅ All 23 releases migrated to Git-based HelmRelease CRDs
• ✅ Helmfile no longer used for deployments
• ✅ Every release tested & verified
• ✅ Full test suite in place

By End of Phase 3 (Week 8)

• ✅ Automatic reconciliation enabled
• ✅ Drift detection + alerting working
• ✅ Metrics flowing to Prometheus
• ✅ Team trained on GitOps workflows
• ✅ RTO < 2 hours (restore from Git if needed)

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How to Read the Documentation

Quick Overview (10 min)

→ Read: FLUX_PLANNING_SUMMARY.md

Start here to understand what we're doing and why. Tables, diagrams, high-level summary. Perfect for stakeholder presentations.

Getting Ready to Build (1 hour)

→ Read: FLUX_PLANNING_INDEX.md + FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md (Executive Summary)

Learn the full architecture, decision rationale, and how phases fit together.

Phase 1 Implementation (Week 1–2)

→ Reference: FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §5.1 (Phase 1: Flux Bootstrap)

Detailed tasks:

• 1.1: Bootstrap Flux into cluster
• 1.2: Create Git repo structure
• 1.3: HelmRepository CRDs (13 repos)
• 1.4: SOPS + age setup
• 1.5: Helmfile-bridge CronJob

Phase 2 Migration (Weeks 3–6)

→ Reference: FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §5.2 (Phase 2: HelmRelease Migration)

Four parallel streams:

• Stream A: Low-risk (reloader, prometheus)
• Stream B: Medium-risk (cert-manager, ingress)
• Stream C: High-risk secrets (authentik, vault)
• Stream D: Complex stateful (minio, forgejo)

Per-release process: generate CRD → validate → deploy → test → commit

Phase 3 Production Readiness (Weeks 7–8)

→ Reference: FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §5.3 (Phase 3: Continuous Reconciliation)

Auto-sync, metrics, runbooks, team training.

Troubleshooting & Rollback

→ Reference: FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §7 (Rollback & Safety Guardrails)

How to recover if something breaks:

• Suspend Flux + manual rollback
• Git revert + auto-reconciliation
• Disaster recovery from Git

Testing Strategy

→ Reference: FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §8 (Testing Strategy)

Unit tests, integration tests, chaos tests, production deployment strategy.

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Risk Summary

Main Risks & How We Handle Them

Risk	Mitigation
Flux + helmfile conflict	Stagger reconciliation (helmfile 30min, Flux 5min)
Secret injection breaks	Three-tier approach (SOPS + ConfigMaps + .env fallback)
Secrets leak in Git	SOPS encryption from start + pre-commit hooks
Cluster recovery fails	Keep helmfile as fallback; test quarterly

All risks detailed with specific mitigations in FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md §9 (Risk Assessment).

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Timeline Reality Check

Week 1–2:  Phase 1 bootstrap (20 hrs)
           ├─ 1 DevOps engineer + 1 Security engineer
           └─ 0 downtime to running workloads

Week 3–6:  Phase 2 migration (40 hrs)
           ├─ 4 parallel streams (DevOps + Ops + Security)
           └─ Release-by-release (low risk)

Week 7–8:  Phase 3 hardening (16 hrs)
           ├─ DevOps + QA
           └─ Runbooks + training

Total:     ~99 hours (~2.5 FTE-weeks)
           6–8 calendar weeks (with parallelization)

Actual timeline depends on:

• Team size (4 engineers = 8 weeks; 2 engineers = 12 weeks)
• Experience with Flux (learning curve ~40 hours)
• Testing rigor (each phase adds 1–2 weeks)

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Next Actions

Immediately (Today)

1. Review FLUX_PLANNING_SUMMARY.md (15 min)

   • Understand the approach
   • Check decision matrix
   • Confirm timeline is acceptable

2. Share with stakeholders

   • Security team: review SOPS approach
   • Ops team: review rollback procedures
   • Management: confirm timeline & resources

3. Get approval for:

   • Phased approach (6–8 weeks)
   • Flux v2 + HelmRelease CRDs
   • SOPS encryption for secrets
   • ~99 hours effort

Week 1 (Phase 1 Kickoff)

1. Assign team members

   • DevOps lead
   • Security engineer (SOPS)
   • Ops engineer (testing)

2. Bootstrap Flux

   • flux bootstrap git command
   • Set up Git repo structure
   • Deploy HelmRepository CRDs

3. Start helmfile-bridge development

   • CronJob to run helmfile apply every 30 min
   • Test alongside Flux (staggered intervals)

Weeks 3–8 (Phases 2 & 3)

Follow the phase roadmap in FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md with weekly syncs.

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Files Created

All in /Users/rockliang/workplace/homelab/:

1. FLUX_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md (55 KB)

   • Complete technical specification
   • Phase-by-phase breakdown
   • Code examples & detailed procedures

2. FLUX_PLANNING_SUMMARY.md (13 KB)

   • Executive overview
   • Decision matrices
   • Quick reference tables

3. FLUX_PLANNING_INDEX.md (13 KB)

   • Navigation guide
   • Quick start by audience
   • FAQ & related docs

4. _FLUX_START_HERE.md (this file)

   • Quick orientation
   • Next actions

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Questions to Ask

Before Phase 1 starts, clarify:

1. Team capacity? How many FTE can we dedicate?

   • 4 FTE → 8 weeks
   • 2 FTE → 12 weeks

2. Timeline flexibility? Hard deadline or can we adjust?

   • If hard: compress with more parallel streams
   • If flexible: add more testing/validation

3. Flux experience on team? Anyone used Flux before?

   • If no: add 1–2 weeks for learning curve
   • If yes: can reduce onboarding time

4. Multi-cluster plans? Will you add more clusters after homelab?

   • If yes: design for portability from start
   • If no: homelab-specific is fine

5. SOPS comfort? Any concerns about secret encryption in Git?

   • If yes: alternative is store in Vault (referenced from HelmRelease)
   • If no: SOPS is recommended

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Document Quality Checklist

The planning documentation includes:

• ✅ Executive summary — problem & solution in 1 page
• ✅ Current state analysis — what we're migrating from
• ✅ Architecture decisions — Flux v2, HelmRelease, SOPS (with reasoning)
• ✅ Detailed design — GitRepository, Kustomization, HelmRelease CRDs
• ✅ 3-phase roadmap — specific tasks, timelines, deliverables, success criteria
• ✅ Conflict resolution — helmfile + Flux, .env → SOPS, kubectl drift
• ✅ Rollback procedures — what to do if something breaks
• ✅ Safety guardrails — RBAC, audit logging, validation webhooks, approval gates
• ✅ Testing strategy — unit, integration, chaos, production deployment
• ✅ Risk assessment — probability, impact, mitigation for each risk
• ✅ Timeline & effort — 99 hours, 6-8 weeks, team composition
• ✅ Useful commands — Flux CLI cheatsheet
• ✅ FAQ — downtime, rollback, recovery, cost

Ready for review and implementation kickoff.

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Status: Planning phase complete. Ready for team discussion & approval.

Next: Review FLUX_PLANNING_SUMMARY.md, approve approach, assign Phase 1 team.