Ansible + Flux — GitOps Kubernetes Deployments

Introduction

Flux CD is a CNCF graduated GitOps toolkit for Kubernetes. It continuously reconciles your cluster state with declarations in Git — when you push a change to your repository, Flux automatically applies it to the cluster. Managing Flux with Ansible lets you bootstrap multiple clusters, configure Git sources, and set up deployment pipelines as code.

Prerequisites

pip install kubernetes openshift
ansible-galaxy collection install kubernetes.core community.general

Bootstrap Flux with Ansible

---
- name: Bootstrap Flux CD on Kubernetes
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  vars:
    flux_version: "2.4.0"
    github_owner: "myorg"
    github_repo: "fleet-config"
    github_token: "{{ vault_github_token }}"
    cluster_name: "production"
  tasks:
    - name: Install Flux CLI
      ansible.builtin.get_url:
        url: "https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2/releases/download/v{{ flux_version }}/flux_{{ flux_version }}_linux_amd64.tar.gz"
        dest: /tmp/flux.tar.gz

    - name: Extract Flux CLI
      ansible.builtin.unarchive:
        src: /tmp/flux.tar.gz
        dest: /usr/local/bin/
        remote_src: true

    - name: Check Flux prerequisites
      ansible.builtin.command:
        cmd: flux check --pre
      register: flux_check
      changed_when: false

    - name: Bootstrap Flux with GitHub
      ansible.builtin.command:
        cmd: >
          flux bootstrap github
          --owner={{ github_owner }}
          --repository={{ github_repo }}
          --branch=main
          --path=clusters/{{ cluster_name }}
          --personal
      environment:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: "{{ github_token }}"
      register: bootstrap
      changed_when: "'configured' in bootstrap.stdout"

    - name: Verify Flux installation
      ansible.builtin.command:
        cmd: flux check
      register: verify
      changed_when: false

    - name: Show Flux status
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "{{ verify.stdout }}"

Configure Git Sources

- name: Configure Flux GitRepository sources
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  tasks:
    - name: Create application Git source
      kubernetes.core.k8s:
        state: present
        definition:
          apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
          kind: GitRepository
          metadata:
            name: my-app
            namespace: flux-system
          spec:
            interval: 1m
            url: "https://github.com/{{ github_owner }}/my-app"
            ref:
              branch: main
            secretRef:
              name: github-auth

    - name: Create Helm repository source
      kubernetes.core.k8s:
        state: present
        definition:
          apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
          kind: HelmRepository
          metadata:
            name: bitnami
            namespace: flux-system
          spec:
            interval: 30m
            url: "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami"

Deploy Applications with Kustomization

- name: Configure Flux Kustomizations
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  tasks:
    - name: Deploy app with Kustomization
      kubernetes.core.k8s:
        state: present
        definition:
          apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
          kind: Kustomization
          metadata:
            name: my-app
            namespace: flux-system
          spec:
            interval: 10m
            targetNamespace: production
            sourceRef:
              kind: GitRepository
              name: my-app
            path: ./deploy/production
            prune: true
            healthChecks:
              - apiVersion: apps/v1
                kind: Deployment
                name: my-app
                namespace: production
            timeout: 5m

    - name: Deploy infrastructure components
      kubernetes.core.k8s:
        state: present
        definition:
          apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
          kind: Kustomization
          metadata:
            name: infrastructure
            namespace: flux-system
          spec:
            interval: 30m
            sourceRef:
              kind: GitRepository
              name: fleet-config
            path: ./infrastructure
            prune: true
            dependsOn:
              - name: cert-manager
              - name: ingress-nginx

HelmRelease Deployments

- name: Deploy Helm charts via Flux
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  tasks:
    - name: Deploy Redis via HelmRelease
      kubernetes.core.k8s:
        state: present
        definition:
          apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2
          kind: HelmRelease
          metadata:
            name: redis
            namespace: production
          spec:
            interval: 30m
            chart:
              spec:
                chart: redis
                version: "18.x"
                sourceRef:
                  kind: HelmRepository
                  name: bitnami
                  namespace: flux-system
            values:
              architecture: replication
              replica:
                replicaCount: 3
              auth:
                existingSecret: redis-password
              metrics:
                enabled: true

Multi-Cluster Setup

---
- name: Bootstrap Flux on multiple clusters
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  vars:
    clusters:
      - name: staging
        context: staging-cluster
        path: clusters/staging
      - name: production
        context: production-cluster
        path: clusters/production
  tasks:
    - name: Bootstrap each cluster
      ansible.builtin.command:
        cmd: >
          flux bootstrap github
          --context={{ item.context }}
          --owner={{ github_owner }}
          --repository={{ github_repo }}
          --branch=main
          --path={{ item.path }}
          --personal
      environment:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: "{{ github_token }}"
      loop: "{{ clusters }}"
      register: results
      changed_when: "'configured' in results.stdout"

Troubleshooting

# Check all Flux resources
flux get all

# Check specific source
flux get sources git

# Check kustomization status
flux get kustomizations

# Force reconciliation
flux reconcile kustomization my-app --with-source

# View Flux logs
flux logs --all-namespaces

# Suspend/resume reconciliation
flux suspend kustomization my-app
flux resume kustomization my-app

Conclusion

Ansible + Flux creates a powerful GitOps pipeline: use Ansible to bootstrap and configure Flux across clusters, then let Flux continuously reconcile your desired state from Git. This combination gives you infrastructure-as-code provisioning (Ansible) plus continuous delivery (Flux) in a single workflow.