This guide installs Argo CD into a cluster and gets you signed in to the web UI. You need kubectl configured for a cluster you can freely experiment on. A local kind or minikube cluster is ideal.

Create a namespace and apply the install manifest

Argo CD runs in its own namespace. Create it, then apply the official install manifest:

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd --server-side --force-conflicts \
  -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Recent Argo CD releases recommend server-side apply because some of the bundled CRDs are too large for client-side apply’s annotation limit. Check the Getting Started page for the exact command for the version you install. If you’d rather review what you’re about to run, download the manifest first and read it.

Wait for the components to come up

kubectl get pods -n argocd
kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready pods --all -n argocd --timeout=300s

You should see the application controller, the repo server, the API server, Redis, and a few supporting controllers. Some pods take a minute to become ready, so it’s normal to see ContainerCreating at first.

Reach the web UI

The API server is exposed through a ClusterIP service named argocd-server. For a local cluster, port-forward it:

kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8080:443

Open https://localhost:8080. Your browser will warn about the certificate, since Argo CD generates a self-signed one by default. Accept the warning for this local setup.

Get the initial admin password and sign in

The username is admin. The initial password is generated during installation and stored in a Secret:

kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret \
  -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d; echo

Paste it into the login form. The UI will be empty because no applications are registered yet. That’s the next guide.

Two things to do before this goes anywhere beyond a local experiment: change the admin password and delete the initial-password Secret, and expose Argo CD through an Ingress or LoadBalancer with a real TLS certificate instead of relying on port-forwarding.