GlassFlow CLI

The GlassFlow CLI provides a quick way to set up a local development environment for exploring and testing GlassFlow - an open-source ETL tool for real-time data processing from Kafka to ClickHouse.

The GlassFlow CLI is designed for local testing, demos, and exploration only.
For production deployments, use the official GlassFlow Helm charts.
The CLI creates a local Kubernetes cluster using Kind and deploys all necessary components.

Prerequisites

Before installing the GlassFlow CLI, ensure you have:

Docker (or compatible runtime like Docker Desktop, OrbStack, Colima, or Podman)
Helm — install via Helm docs or run: brew install helm
kubectl (installed automatically via Homebrew, or install manually)

Install CLI

Verify installation


glassflow version

You should see the version number of the installed GlassFlow CLI.

Quick Start

Step 1: Bring up the services

Run glassflow up to create the cluster and install the core services:


glassflow up

This will:

Create a Kind cluster (if needed)
Install GlassFlow ETL (glassflow namespace) via Helm
Install Kafka (kafka namespace) and ClickHouse (clickhouse namespace) via Helm
Wait for all services to be ready (up to ~25 minutes)
Configure port forwarding for UI and API access

Access GlassFlow services (available after Step 1; ports may vary if alternatives were chosen):

GlassFlow UI: http://localhost:30080
GlassFlow API: http://localhost:30180
ClickHouse HTTP: http://localhost:30090

Step 2: Set up the demo (optional)

To create a demo pipeline, Kafka topic, ClickHouse table, and a data producer that sends sample events:


glassflow setup-demo

This will create a pipeline, create a Kafka topic, create a ClickHouse table, and start a data producer.

💡

After running glassflow setup-demo, a pipeline ingests events from the demo_events Kafka topic into the demo_events table in ClickHouse. You can view this pipeline in the GlassFlow UI.

Stop the environment

When you’re done testing, stop and clean up the local environment:


glassflow down

This will stop all running services, remove the Kind cluster, and clean up all resources.

What gets installed

After glassflow up:

Kind: Local Kubernetes cluster for running all services
Kafka: Message broker (kafka namespace, Bitnami Helm chart)
ClickHouse: Columnar database (clickhouse namespace, Bitnami Helm chart)
GlassFlow ETL: Real-time streaming ETL service (glassflow namespace, GlassFlow Helm chart)

After glassflow setup-demo (optional):

A demo pipeline, Kafka topic, ClickHouse table, and a data producer that sends sample events