yehudacohen/applik8s

applik8s is a tool that lets a developer build applications that run on top of Kubernetes, the widely used system for managing containerized software, using plain TypeScript instead of Kubernetes' usual configuration files and low-level tooling. You write typed definitions of Kubernetes APIs and the logic that should react to events on the cluster, and applik8s compiles that into a small WebAssembly component. That component is then packaged together with a Rust program that hosts it, and applik8s generates all the Kubernetes configuration files needed to install the whole thing. The project is organized around a series of numbered releases, each proving a bigger example application. An early example, GuestBook, shows one TypeScript program defining a custom Kubernetes resource type, installing the necessary operator, generating a small web server, and serving live data straight from the cluster. A later example, called Tenant Platform, expands this to a full application: it declares data models backed by PostgreSQL, HTTP routes, background reconciliation logic, and cleanup jobs, all from one TypeScript file. The newest addition builds in durable, typed handling of user commands, so a single line of code can set up reliable message processing backed by PostgreSQL for state and a message broker called NATS JetStream for delivery, complete with retry and failure handling. Under the hood, applik8s still produces a real, inspectable Kubernetes setup: custom resource definitions, database resources, jobs, generated server code, and access control rules, rather than hiding everything behind a black box. The project emphasizes that generated artifacts stay readable and that the system is honest about what parts are stable versus experimental. The project is written in TypeScript and uses the Bun runtime for its build and test commands, along with a Rust operator host underneath. The README does not state the project's license.