Basic installation

Prerequisites

• A Kubernetes cluster (from any Kubernetes distribution, such as EKS, AKS, GKE, minikube, or kind)
• A StormForge account — sign up for free at app.stormforge.io/signup
• In an enterprise environment, make sure a system administrator has addressed additional prerequisites (such as firewall rules and proxies)

Install StormForge

1. Log in to app.stormforge.io.

   If you are setting up StormForge for the first time, you will be automatically taken to the Add Cluster page — continue to step 3.

2. Click Clusters in the left navigation; then, on the Clusters page, click Add Cluster.

3. Give your cluster a name and click Continue.

   The name can’t exceed 63 characters, can’t start or end with a dash (-), and must follow the RFC 1123 DNS label standard.

4. Install StormForge: Copy and run the generated helm install command, which looks similar to the following (where my-cluster is the name you chose for this cluster, and CLIENT_ID and CLIENT_SECRET are generated alphanumeric strings).

   This installs the Agent, Applier, and Exporter into the stormforge-system namespace.

   helm install stormforge oci://registry.stormforge.io/library/stormforge \
     --create-namespace --namespace stormforge-system \
     --set clusterName="my-cluster" \
     --set authorization.clientID="CLIENT_ID" \
     --set authorization.clientSecret="CLIENT_SECRET"
   

   To install without the Applier, add --set applier.enabled=false to the command.

Validate the installation

1. Return to the StormForge UI and click Check Connection. You’ll be redirected to the Overview page where you can see a Welcome message and confirmation that the Agent is connected.

2. After about 10 minutes, you can see your cluster and its workloads on the Clusters and Workloads pages.

3. In the left navigation, click Workloads and search for your cluster name. Make sure you see the stormforge-agent workload and any workloads that were already on your cluster.

What happens after you install?

The StormForge Agent starts collecting workload metrics as soon as you install.

First 7 days: Metrics collection and preliminary recommendations

Ten minutes after installation, once initial metrics are collected, StormForge provides its first preliminary recommendation to give you a preview of potential optimization impact.

Preliminary recommendations are then generated:

• Hourly, for the first 24 hours after installing
• Once daily, on days 2 to 7 after installing

These can be viewed as a preview, but we recommend waiting for a complete recommendation before applying.

It typically takes about 7 days to collect enough metrics to generate an optimal recommendation (referred to as a complete recommendation) for you to apply.

For this reason, we recommend waiting 7 days before applying recommendations.

After 7 days: View and apply recommendations

StormForge has collected sufficient metrics and now generates recommendations once daily for each workload. You can change the schedule at any time.

Review the projected impact of recommendations:

• At the estate level on the Overview page.
• At the cluster level on the Clusters page — drill down to view namespaces, then workloads.
• At the workload level on the Workloads page.
  • Click View Summary for a breakdown of workload statuses (useful for troubleshooting and checking workload health).
  • Click a workload name to view workload details and recommendation impact.

StormForge Applier

The Applier is installed and enabled by default. By default, recommendations aren’t applied automatically, giving you control over how and when they’re applied. The Applier allows you to:

• Apply recommendations on demand from the StormForge UI.
• Apply them automatically on a schedule. For this method, you must also enable automatic deployment.

For more information about how the Applier works, see StormForge Applier.

Continuous reconciliation

You can control whether the Applier continuously reconciles workload resource settings to the recommended values. For details, see Continuous reconciliation in the Applier configuration topic.

Disabling the Applier

If you plan to deploy recommendations as part of a GitOps workflow or export recommendations as patches, you can disable the Applier at install time. Recommendations will continue to be generated; their application is up to you.

helm install stormforge oci://registry.stormforge.io/library/stormforge \
  --create-namespace --namespace stormforge-system \
  --set clusterName="my-cluster" \
  --set authorization.clientID="CLIENT_ID" \
  --set authorization.clientSecret="CLIENT_SECRET" \
  --set applier.enabled=false

Next steps

Review the optimization settings

Review the settings StormForge uses to generate recommendations for a workload: In the StormForge UI, click Workloads; then click a workload name and go to the Settings tab.

By default, these settings apply to all workloads in the cluster.

Change the optimization settings (optional)

If you’ve enabled automatic deployment and are satisfied with the default cluster settings, no further configuration is needed.

If you want to adjust the defaults, we recommend setting them at the cluster level, then defining exceptions at the namespace and workload levels. See Configure optimization settings for details.

Helm chart and troubleshooting

To learn more about the StormForge Helm chart and troubleshooting steps:

helm show readme oci://registry.stormforge.io/library/stormforge

To see all available configuration parameters:

helm show values oci://registry.stormforge.io/library/stormforge