officialsangdavid/k8s-webapp-infra

This repository is a template and walkthrough for deploying a web application on Kubernetes, a system for running containerized software across servers, in a production ready, repeatable way. It sets up two fully isolated environments, staging for testing and production for real users, using a tool called Kustomize to manage the configuration differences between them. The central design principle is that no secret value, such as database passwords or API keys, should ever be stored in the Git repository. Instead, secrets live in HashiCorp Vault, a dedicated secret storage system. A component called External Secrets Operator, or ESO, acts as a bridge: it watches for declarations in the cluster that say a secret is needed from Vault, authenticates using the cluster's own identity, fetches the value, and creates a real Kubernetes secret automatically. The application then receives the secret as an environment variable at runtime. Deploying a complete environment takes a single command once the prerequisites are in place. The structure is designed to be extensible: adding a new environment means copying an overlay folder and changing a small number of values. The repository includes a step by step guide covering cluster creation with a local kind cluster, Vault installation and configuration, ESO setup, and environment deployment, with screenshots showing what a successful run looks like at each stage. Staging and production differ in a handful of settings: staging runs a single replica pointed at one container image tag, while production runs three replicas on a newer image tag, and each environment reads its secrets from a separate path in Vault so a mistake in one overlay cannot leak into the other. A table of required tools is included, covering specific versions of kubectl, kustomize, helm, kind, git, and docker that the guide was tested against. The project is written primarily in HCL, the configuration language used by HashiCorp tools, and targets engineers learning how platform teams approach repeatability, security, and operational discipline in Kubernetes deployments. The full README is longer than what was shown.