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Introduction

litek8s.dev · docs · releases

A lightweight Kubernetes in one binary, for local development, home labs and the edge. It serves the real Kubernetes API, so kubectl, Helm and Argo CD work unchanged, but the whole control plane, scheduler, controllers, DNS, service proxy and node agent are one Rust process that idles at about 20 MiB.

Terminal window
litek8s dev up        # a local cluster: ~0.2 s on Linux, ~1.3 s on macOS
kubectl get nodes     # context litek8s-dev, merged into ~/.kube/config
litek8s ui            # terminal UI for the cluster, containers and images

Status: early preview (v0.x). Built and tested by one person; expect rough edges. There is no client authentication yet: keep the API on localhost or a trusted network (Limitations). Feedback and issues are very welcome.

What’s in the binary

Section titled “What’s in the binary”
  • Dev clusters (litek8s dev): kind/k3d/minikube without Docker. As many clusters as you like, each with as many nodes, in one rootless sandbox (Linux) or one small Virtualization.framework VM (macOS) that grows its memory on demand. NodePorts on localhost, your home directory mounted at the same path, litek8s dev load for local images. docs/dev.md
  • Docker Engine API on ~/.litek8s/docker.sock: docker, docker compose, docker build, Dev Containers and Testcontainers run on the dev cluster, next to (not instead of) Docker or OrbStack. docs/docker.md
  • Terminal UI (litek8s ui): cluster state, a k9s-style Kubernetes view, containers by compose project with logs and shells, images, volumes, disk cleanup; keyboard-driven, works over SSH. docs/ui.md
  • Built-in observability: an embedded time-series store with a Prometheus-compatible API (Grafana works), log search across every pod and node, alert rules to a webhook, ntfy or Telegram; kubectl top. docs/observability.md
  • Real servers and nodes: litek8s apiserver on a box, more machines join with litek8s agent --join ... --token ... (k3s-style token that pins the CA), pods talk across nodes over a WireGuard mesh litek8s sets up itself. Pods run on crun directly: no containerd, no pause containers. Multi-node
  • HA control plane: 3 or 5 API servers share the store through Raft; no etcd. docs/ha.md
  • For LLM agents: litek8s mcp is an MCP server (dev clusters, objects, pod diagnosis, logs, PromQL, alerts) with guardrails, and litek8s skill installs an agent skill: claude mcp add litek8s -- litek8s mcp. docs/agents.md
  • CRDs done properly: OpenAPI schema validation, CEL rules type-checked and cost-estimated, ratcheting, server-side apply with managedFields. docs/crds.md

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

One process does what a Kubernetes distribution splits across etcd, the API server, the controller manager, the scheduler, CoreDNS, kube-proxy, the kubelet and containerd, plus a Docker-compatible API and a metrics, logs and alerts stack:

How litek8s works kubectl, Helm, Argo CD, litek8s ui and MCP agents talk to the Kubernetes API server on port 6443; docker, compose, Dev Containers and Testcontainers talk to the Docker Engine API on docker.sock. Both live in one litek8s process with the object store (a WAL, or Raft in HA), the controllers and scheduler, DNS and the service proxy, metrics, logs and alerts, and the node agent. The node agent and the Docker API run containers on crun, with no containerd and no pause containers. kubectl · Helm · Argo CD litek8s ui · MCP agents docker · compose Dev Containers · Testcontainers :6443 docker.sock litek8s · one process Kubernetes API server CRDs + CEL · server-side apply · watch Docker Engine API containers · networks · images · build object store WAL, or Raft in HA controllers + scheduler DNS + service proxy metrics · logs alerts node agent pods · logs · exec pods crun: containers no containerd, no pause containers one Rust process idles at about 20 MiB

The legacy daemon

Section titled “The legacy daemon”

litek8s began as a small Docker-backed orchestrator with its own reduced manifest format (apiVersion: litek8s.dev/v1alpha1), a daemon over a Unix socket (litek8s serve) and SSH-backed remote nodes. It is still in the binary but no longer the focus; see docs/legacy-daemon.md.

License

Section titled “License”

Apache-2.0, see LICENSE and NOTICE. Third-party components: THIRD-PARTY.md.