Part 5: Automation and GitOps with Azure Arc

In this post, we explore one of the most powerful capabilities of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes: GitOps automation.

GitOps allows you to manage and deploy applications declaratively using a Git repository as the single source of truth. When combined with Azure Arc, it gives you full control over Kubernetes clusters running anywhere — including on-prem, in AWS, GCP, or edge sites.

🤖 What is GitOps?

GitOps is a model where:

Git repositories store your desired cluster state (YAML manifests)
An agent (usually Flux or Argo CD) continuously syncs the repo with the cluster
Drift is automatically corrected
All changes are traceable via Git history

With Arc-enabled Kubernetes, GitOps is built-in via Flux v2, integrated directly through the Azure portal or CLI.

⚙️ GitOps Architecture with Azure Arc

Once a cluster is connected with Arc, you can:

Enable GitOps via the Azure CLI or portal
Deploy one or more Flux configurations
Point to a public or private Git repo
Define sync intervals and scopes (cluster-wide or namespace)

Each config deploys Helm charts or raw YAML — perfect for:

Baseline tools (e.g. Ingress controllers, monitoring agents)
Workload deployments
Custom policies or network rules

🚀 Setting Up GitOps with Azure Arc

Here’s a simple CLI example:

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az k8s-configuration flux create \
  --cluster-name my-arc-cluster \
  --resource-group arc-rg \
  --cluster-type connectedClusters \
  --name baseline-deploy \
  --namespace flux-system \
  --url https://github.com/your-org/cluster-baseline \
  --branch main \
  --kustomization name=infra path=./manifests prune=true