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Buildpacks on EKS

Pulse via GitOps

Pulse
Sample app in this lab — HTTP service monitor with dashboard, API, and Kubernetes health probes. is not installed with raw kubectl apply on the Deployment. Managed Argo CD
Argo CD — GitOps controller that syncs cluster state from Git repositories. syncs pulse-deploy from CodeCommit
AWS managed Git hosting — GitHub alternative used for app source and deploy manifests in this lab. — same Application pattern as kpack via GitOps and Kueue via GitOps.

This page is stage 3 · App from the architecture overview stages diagram: Application pulse (path: .) — Deployment, Service, and pods. Not the kpack Image CR also named pulse.

Work from the repository root (paths below use demo/…).

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • kpack via GitOps — cluster registered for Argo CD, Application kpack Synced/Healthy, pulse:main in ECR
    Amazon Elastic Container Registry — stores OCI images built by kpack; EKS pulls from here.     (or expect ImagePullBackOff until the build finishes)
  • CodeCommit publish — pulse-deploy has main (root Kustomize: base/ only)

Cluster registration (in-cluster secret + access policy) was completed on the kpack page. Re-apply those steps only if you skipped that page.

Set variables

Section titled “Set variables”
Terminal window
export AWS_PROFILE=sandbox
export AWS_PAGER=""
export AWS_REGION=ap-southeast-2
export CLUSTER_NAME=cluster-1
export CODECOMMIT_DEPLOY=pulse-deploy


export CLUSTER_ARN=$(aws eks describe-cluster \
  --name "$CLUSTER_NAME" \
  --region "$AWS_REGION" \
  --query 'cluster.arn' \
  --output text)
export CODECOMMIT_DEPLOY_URL="https://git-codecommit.${AWS_REGION}.amazonaws.com/v1/repos/${CODECOMMIT_DEPLOY}"


echo "CLUSTER_ARN=$CLUSTER_ARN"

Deploy Pulse with Argo CD

Section titled “Deploy Pulse with Argo CD”

Destination server must be the EKS cluster ARN. Do not use destination.name: in-cluster alone (managed Argo CD will not sync that way):

Terminal window
mkdir -p demo/.generated/argocd


cat > demo/.generated/argocd/application.yaml <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: pulse
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: default
  source:
    repoURL: ${CODECOMMIT_DEPLOY_URL}
    targetRevision: main
    path: .
  destination:
    server: ${CLUSTER_ARN}
    namespace: default
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
    syncOptions:
      - CreateNamespace=true
EOF


kubectl apply -f demo/.generated/argocd/application.yaml
kubectl -n argocd get application pulse

Right after create, SYNC STATUS / HEALTH STATUS may be blank for a few seconds while Argo CD reconciles.

What you see while it syncs

Section titled “What you see while it syncs”
Terminal window
kubectl -n argocd get application pulse -o wide
kubectl -n argocd get applications -o wide
kubectl -n default get deploy,svc,pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=pulse

Typical sequence (often under a minute when pulse:main is already in ECR):

  1. Application Synced / Progressing, then Healthy — revision matches Application kpack (same pulse-deploy main)
  2. In default: Deployment pulse, LoadBalancer Service pulse, ConfigMap pulse-config, pod Ready
  3. You have two Applications on pulse-deploy: kpack (path: kpack) and pulse (path: .)

Optional wait:

Terminal window
kubectl -n default wait deploy/pulse --for=condition=available --timeout=5m
kubectl -n argocd get applications -o wide

Confirm in the Argo CD UI: cluster cluster-1 → Capabilities → lab-argocd → Applications kpack and pulse.

LoadBalancer hostname (for Verify the service):

Terminal window
kubectl -n default get svc pulse -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}{"\n"}'

Next

Section titled “Next”

CNB lifecycle — then Verify the service.