Connect Your Kubernetes Cluster

This guide walks you through connecting your Kubernetes cluster to Lapdev, so Lapdev can manage development environments inside your cluster.

Read Cluster to understand cluster roles, permissions, and how kube-manager works.

Create a Cluster in the Lapdev Dashboard

  1. Go to the Lapdev dashboard: https://app.lap.dev

  2. Navigate to Clusters → click Create New Cluster.

  3. Enter a name to identify your cluster (e.g. staging-cluster or dev-cluster).

  4. After creating it, you’ll see an authentication token and installation instructions for your cluster.

Keep this token handy — it’s used to securely register your cluster with Lapdev.

Install the Lapdev Kube Manager

Run the install command shown in the dashboard, or apply the manifest manually:

kubectl apply -f "https://get.lap.dev/install/lapdev-kube-manager.yaml?token=<your-cluster-token>"

Replace <your-cluster-token> with the token generated when you created the cluster. The manifest creates the lapdev namespace (if needed), configures the required RBAC, and deploys the lapdev-kube-manager controller that securely connects your cluster to Lapdev.

Configure Cluster Permissions

After the cluster is connected, configure which environment types can be deployed to this cluster:

  1. Go to the cluster details page in the dashboard

  2. Find the Permissions section

  3. Toggle permissions based on your needs:

    • Personal Environments - Allow developers to create isolated environments

    • Shared Environments - Allow team-wide baseline and branch environments

You can change these settings at any time.

Learn more about cluster permissions and use cases in Cluster.

Verify Connection

Once the installation is complete:

  • Go back to the Clusters page in the Lapdev dashboard.

  • Your cluster should appear in the list with a status of Active.

If the status doesn’t update after a minute, double-check that:

  • The lapdev-kube-manager pod is running:

    kubectl get pods -n lapdev
  • Your network allows outbound HTTPS connections to api.lap.dev.

Next Steps

Your cluster is now connected to Lapdev! 🎉

You can start:

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