Quickstart on Kind¶

Run Kavrynt 0.0.2-beta.1 in a disposable local Kind cluster, register an MCP server, and route a request through the Gateway. No source access is needed: everything comes from published container images and the Helm chart.

Time: about 10 minutes.

Beta

0.0.2-beta.1 is for evaluation in trusted clusters. The Gateway does not authenticate clients or enforce policy yet. See Current limitations.

Prerequisites¶

Docker
Kind 0.20 or newer
kubectl 1.29 or newer
Helm 3.8 or newer (OCI chart support)
curl

docker version --format '{{.Server.Version}}'
kind version
kubectl version --client
helm version --short

1. Create a cluster¶

kind create cluster --name kavrynt-trial
kubectl config current-context

Expected: kind-kavrynt-trial.

2. Install Kavrynt¶

export KAVRYNT_VERSION=0.0.2-beta.1

helm upgrade --install kavrynt oci://registry-1.docker.io/kavrynt/kavrynt \
  --version "$KAVRYNT_VERSION" \
  --namespace kavrynt-system \
  --create-namespace \
  --wait --timeout 3m

The chart installs the MCPServer CRD, the Operator, and the Gateway, pulling docker.io/kavrynt/gateway and docker.io/kavrynt/operator at the same version.

Check the runtime:

kubectl get deployments -n kavrynt-system
kubectl get crd mcpservers.kavrynt.io

Expected:

NAME               READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE
kavrynt-gateway    1/1     1            1
kavrynt-operator   1/1     1            1

3. Deploy a test backend¶

This echo server proves routing. It is not an MCP implementation; any MCP server that speaks Streamable HTTP works the same way.

kubectl create deployment example-mcp-server \
  --image=hashicorp/http-echo:1.0 \
  -- /http-echo -listen=:8080 -text='{"mock":true,"service":"example-mcp-server"}'

kubectl expose deployment example-mcp-server --port=8080 --target-port=8080
kubectl rollout status deployment/example-mcp-server --timeout=120s

4. Register it as an MCPServer¶

kubectl apply -f - <<'EOF'
apiVersion: kavrynt.io/v1alpha1
kind: MCPServer
metadata:
  name: example-mcp-server
  namespace: default
spec:
  version: 0.1.0
  transport: http
  endpoint: http://example-mcp-server.default.svc.cluster.local:8080
EOF

kubectl wait mcpserver/example-mcp-server --for=condition=Ready --timeout=60s
kubectl get mcpservers

Expected:

NAME                 TRANSPORT   VERSION   READY   AGE
example-mcp-server   http        0.1.0     True    5s

5. Route a request through the Gateway¶

kubectl port-forward -n kavrynt-system svc/kavrynt-gateway 18080:8080 >/tmp/kavrynt-gateway.log 2>&1 &
GATEWAY_PF=$!
sleep 3

curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:18080/v1/routes
curl -fsS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:18080/mcp/default.example-mcp-server \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}'

Expected route list (abridged) and proxied response:

{"routes":[{"name":"default.example-mcp-server","version":"0.1.0","transport":"http",...}]}
{"mock":true,"service":"example-mcp-server"}

Routes are namespace-qualified: /mcp/<namespace>.<name>.

6. Remove the server¶

kubectl delete mcpserver example-mcp-server
sleep 2
curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:18080/v1/routes
kill "$GATEWAY_PF"

Expected: {"routes":[]}.

Clean up¶

kind delete cluster --name kavrynt-trial