GitOps Learning Lab

A hands-on lab for learning GitOps with Terraform, Kubernetes, and your choice of ArgoCD or FluxCD, guided by AI.

What You'll Learn

• Terraform fundamentals — Provision cloud infrastructure as code
• Kubernetes cluster setup — Deploy a managed Kubernetes cluster
• GitOps workflows — Declarative deployments with ArgoCD or FluxCD
• Drift detection and reconciliation — Self-healing infrastructure

How This Lab Works

This lab is designed to be completed with an AI tutor (Claude). The AI guides you through each task using the Socratic method — asking questions, providing hints, and validating your work rather than giving you answers directly.

You will:

• Chat with the AI in your terminal or editor
• Write real Terraform and Kubernetes manifests
• Deploy to a real cloud cluster
• Learn by doing, not copy-pasting

Prerequisites

Required

• Git and a GitHub account
• Terraform CLI installed
• kubectl installed
• A cloud provider account (Azure or AWS)

Cloud Provider CLI

• Azure: Azure CLI installed and authenticated (az login)
• AWS: AWS CLI installed and configured (aws configure)

GitOps Tool CLI (installed during lab)

• ArgoCD: argocd CLI
• FluxCD: flux CLI

Getting Started

1. Fork this repository to your GitHub account

2. Clone your fork locally

   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/gitops-lab.git
   cd gitops-lab

3. Start a chat session with Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini (via Claude Code, API, or your preferred interface)

4. Begin the lab — The AI will ask you to choose:

   • Your cloud provider (Azure or AWS)
   • Your GitOps tool (ArgoCD or FluxCD)

5. Follow the AI's guidance through each task

Lab Structure

Foundation Tasks (01-04)

Provider-specific infrastructure setup:

1. Terraform Bootstrap
2. Networking
3. Kubernetes Cluster
4. Cluster Access

GitOps Tasks (05-09)

Tool-specific GitOps implementation: 5. Install ArgoCD/FluxCD 6. Access and Configuration 7. Repository Structure 8. First Application 9. GitOps Workflow

Cleanup (10)

Tear down all resources.

Path Options

Path	Best For
Azure + ArgoCD	UI-first experience, visual learners
Azure + FluxCD	CLI-native workflow, built-in image automation
AWS + ArgoCD	EKS experience with visual GitOps
AWS + FluxCD	EKS with CLI-first GitOps

Estimated Time

• Foundation tasks: 1-2 hours
• GitOps tasks: 2-3 hours
• Total: 3-5 hours (depending on experience)

Cost Warning

This lab creates real cloud resources that incur costs:

• Azure: ~$3-5/day for AKS cluster
• AWS: ~$3-5/day for EKS cluster

Always run Task 10 (Cleanup) when done to destroy resources and stop billing.

Reference Solutions

Stuck? Reference implementations are available in the reference/ directory. Use these to compare against your work — not to copy-paste.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See areas for contribution:

• Additional cloud provider support (GCP, etc.)
• Task improvements and clarifications
• Reference implementations

License

MIT