Quick start

Kubernetes annotations

Service Catalog aggregates the Kubernetes annotations on your services into a single portal for your developers to reference, such as the owner, version control repository, and associated Slack channel. Learn more about adding metadata to services using Kubernetes annotations.

Prerequisites

Service Catalog requires Edge Stack version 1.12 or greater or Emissary-ingress 1.13 or greater to be installed in your cluster.

Install Edge Stack from here if needed.

If you already have Edge Stack or Emissary-ingress installed, check your version by running this command (adjust your namespace if necessary):

Upgrade Edge Stack to the latest version if needed.

1. Connect your cluster to Ambassador Cloud

1. Log in to Ambassador Cloud with your preferred identity provider.

2. At the top, click Add Services then click Connection Instructions in the Edge Stack installation section.

3. Follow the prompts to name the cluster and click Generate a Cloud Token.

4. Follow the prompts to install the cloud token into your cluster.

5. When the token installation completes, refresh the Service Catalog page.

If you installed Edge Stack into an empty cluster you won't see any services in your catalog (except for the Edge Stack services which start with ambassador). Apply this sample app to quickly see an example of a service in the catalog:

Then refresh your Service Catalog page and you should see the quote service listed.

2. Claim ownership of a service

Click the quote service in the list. The service details page now opens that displays additional information about the service.

The metadata for each service is determined by annotations included within your Kubernetes YAML config files. You can annotate the config of the ambassador service that you have just installed to display your name.

1. Change the name of the owner of the quote service by replacing <your name> in the command below and running it. The value could be a GitHub username, an email address, or your actual name.

2. Refresh your Service Catalog page and look at the quote service to see the change with your name.

Modifying the annotations via kubectl is quick and easy, but the changes made to the annotations will not remain if a new deployment of the service is made.

Let's set another annotation using YAML instead to ensure that a new deployment includes the annotations.

3. Add additional metadata via YAML

Open the YAML config file of one of your services. If you applied our quote service earlier, you can download the YAML here.

1. Navigate to the metadata property and locate the annotations property directly beneath it.

   If you cannot find an annotations property, add one to your config in the location shown.

2. Now add the following annotation, replacing <repo URL> with the related Git repository for the service:

   a8r.io/repository: "<repo URL>"

   Your updated Service config should look something like this:

3. Now apply this updated YAML to your cluster, replacing the file name:

What's next?

You've updated the owner and repo URL, but Service Catalog supports many more annotations! See the full list here.