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InstallationSelf HostKubernetes with Helm

GlassFlow on Kubernetes using Helm

This guide will walk you through the process of installing GlassFlow on Kubernetes using Helm.

ℹ️ Note:

  • The official Helm chart is available at github.com/glassflow/charts .
  • The current Helm deployment does not expose GlassFlow to the internet by default. You must use kubectl port-forward to access the UI or API.
  • To expose GlassFlow externally (e.g., via a domain), you must configure ingress in your values.yaml. Refer to the default values.yaml here .
  • Scalability Notice: The current GlassFlow deployment is not horizontally scalable and is not recommended for high-load production use cases. A new, Kubernetes-native scalable version is under development and is expected to be released by end of July.

Prerequisites

  • A running Kubernetes cluster
  • Helm  installed
  • kubectl  for interacting with your cluster (e.g., port forwarding the UI)

Installation

  1. Add the GlassFlow Helm repository:
helm repo add glassflow https://glassflow.github.io/charts
  1. Update the Helm repository:
helm repo update
  1. Install the GlassFlow Helm chart:
helm install glassflow glassflow/glassflow-etl --create-namespace --namespace glassflow

This installs the GlassFlow Helm chart into the glassflow namespace. The --create-namespace flag ensures the namespace is created if it doesn’t already exist.

💡 Note:
By default, the deployment is not publicly accessible. To expose it, you must configure ingress settings in your values.yaml. You can use the default template as a starting point:
glassflow-etl values.yaml 

  1. Verify that the installation is successful:
helm list -n glassflow

The output should look like this:

NAME     	NAMESPACE	REVISION	UPDATED                              	STATUS  	CHART              	APP VERSION
glassflow	glassflow	1       	2025-06-19 09:21:00.010957 +0200 CEST	deployed	glassflow-etl-0.1.1	1.1.12

List the pods that were deployed:

kubectl get pods -n glassflow

The output should look like this:

NAME                                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
glassflow-app-5dbbc96949-bbjx9       1/1     Running   3 (29s ago)   44s
glassflow-nats-0                     2/2     Running   0             44s
glassflow-nats-1                     2/2     Running   0             44s
glassflow-nats-2                     2/2     Running   0             44s
glassflow-nats-box-8896f8cf6-7qcm9   1/1     Running   0             44s
glassflow-ui-5798966dd-jzs6v         1/1     Running   0             44s
  1. Port forward the UI service to your local machine to access the web interface:
kubectl port-forward service/glassflow-ui 8080:8080 -n glassflow

The GlassFlow UI service runs on port 8080. The command above forwards it to your local machine on the same port. If you’d prefer a different local port, simply adjust the command accordingly.

  1. To access the API, you can port forward the API service to your local machine:
kubectl port-forward service/glassflow-app 8081:8080 -n glassflow

The GlassFlow API service runs on port 8080. The command above forwards it to port 8081 on your machine. You can modify this port if needed.

  1. Open http://localhost:8080  in your browser to access the GlassFlow UI. You can now start creating pipelines. For help with your first pipeline, see the Usage Guide.

Getting Help

If you encounter any issues during installation:

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