Step 1 - Install Minikube and kubectl

⚡️ Minikube

1. Install Minikube and kubectl (Docker or Podman driver required).
2. Start a local cluster with Ingress and DNS addons.
3. Load the ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-1 image into Minikube.
4. Apply your Kubernetes manifests.
5. Access the Gateway at http://gateway.local or 127.0.0.1:80 via NGINX Ingress.

Minikube provides a self-contained environment, enabling you to replicate production features like persistent volumes and TLS on your local machine.

📋 Prerequisites

Architecture

          ┌─────────────────────────────┐
          │      NGINX Ingress          │
          └──────────┬───────────┬──────┘
                     │/          │/
      ┌──────────────▼─────┐ ┌────▼───────────┐
      │  MCP Context Forge │ │ PgAdmin (opt.) │
      └─────────┬──────────┘ └────┬───────────┘
                │                 │
   ┌────────────▼──────┐ ┌────────▼────────────┐
   │    PostgreSQL     │ │ Redis Commander(opt)│
   └────────┬──────────┘ └────────┬────────────┘
            │                     │
      ┌─────▼────┐          ┌─────▼────┐
      │   PV     │          │  Redis   │
      └──────────┘          └──────────┘

🚀 Step 1 - Install Minikube and kubectl

Make target

make minikube-install

This target checks for existing installations of minikube and kubectl. If missing, it installs them using:

• Homebrew on macOS
• The official binary on Linux
• Chocolatey on Windows

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install minikube kubernetes-cli

Linux (Generic binary)

# Minikube
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64
sudo install minikube-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube && rm minikube-linux-amd64

# kubectl (latest stable)
curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -sL https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
chmod +x kubectl && sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/

Windows (PowerShell + Chocolatey)

choco install -y minikube kubernetes-cli

⚙️ Step 2 - Start the cluster

Make target

make minikube-start

minikube start \
  --driver=docker \
  --cpus=4 --memory=6g \
  --addons=ingress,ingress-dns \
  --profile=mcpgw

• --driver=docker avoids nested virtualization on macOS and Windows Home.
• ingress provides an NGINX LoadBalancer on localhost.
• ingress-dns resolves *.local domains when you add the Minikube IP to your OS DNS list.
• --cpus and --memory can be set to max to utilize all available resources.

Check cluster status:

make minikube-status
# or:
minikube status -p mcpgw
kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx

🏗 Step 3 - Load the Gateway image

Make target

make minikube-image-load

This target builds the ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-1 image and loads it into Minikube.

Alternative methods

• Pre-cache a remote image:

  minikube cache add ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-1
  minikube cache reload
  

• Load a local tarball:

  docker save ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-1 | minikube image load -
  

📄 Step 4 - Apply Kubernetes manifests

Make target

make minikube-k8s-apply

This applies the Kubernetes manifests. Alternative manual step:

# PostgreSQL
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/postgres-config.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/postgres-pv.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/postgres-pvc.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/postgres-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/postgres-service.yaml

# Redis
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/redis-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/redis-service.yaml

# MCP Gateway
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/mcp-context-forge-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/mcp-context-forge-service.yaml
kubectl apply -f deployment/k8s/mcp-context-forge-ingress.yaml

If you've enabled ingress-dns, set the Ingress host: to gateway.local. Otherwise, omit the host: and access via NodePort.

Note: Minikube automatically configures the kubectl context upon cluster creation. If not, set it manually:

kubectl config use-context minikube
# or:
minikube kubectl -- apply -f ...

🧪 Step 5 - Verify deployment status

Before hitting your endpoint, confirm the application is up and healthy.

🔍 Check pod status

kubectl get pods

Expect output like:

NAME                                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
postgres-5b66bdf445-rp8kl                 1/1     Running   0          15s
redis-668976c4f9-2hljd                    1/1     Running   0          15s
mcp-context-forge-6d87f8c5d8-nnmgx        1/1     Running   0          10s

📜 Check logs (optional)

kubectl logs deploy/mcp-context-forge

This can help diagnose startup errors or missing dependencies (e.g. bad env vars, Postgres connection issues).

🚥 Wait for rollout (optional)

kubectl rollout status deploy/mcp-context-forge

If the pod gets stuck in CrashLoopBackOff, run:

kubectl describe pod <pod-name>

And:

kubectl logs <pod-name>

✅ Confirm Ingress is live

kubectl get ingress

Should show something like:

NAME                        CLASS    HOSTS           ADDRESS        PORTS   AGE
mcp-context-forge-ingress   nginx    gateway.local   192.168.49.2   80      1m

If ADDRESS is empty, the ingress controller may still be warming up.

You may want to add this to /etc/hosts. Ex:

192.168.49.2 gateway.local

🌐 Step 6 - Test access

# Via NodePort:
curl $(minikube service mcp-context-forge --url)/health

# Via DNS:
curl http://gateway.local/health

🧹 Cleaning up

🛠 Non-Make cheatsheet

📚 Further reading

1. Minikube Quick Start guide (official) https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/start/

2. Minikube Docker driver docs https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/drivers/docker/

3. Enable NGINX Ingress in Minikube https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/access-application-cluster/ingress-minikube/

4. Load / cache images inside Minikube https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/pushing/

5. Using Minikube's built-in kubectl https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/kubectl/

6. Allocate max CPU/RAM flags https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/faq/#how-can-i-allocate-maximum-resources-to-minikube

7. Ingress-DNS addon overview https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/addons/ingress-dns/

8. Stack Overflow: loading local images into Minikube https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42564058/how-can-i-use-local-docker-images-with-minikube

Minikube gives you the fastest, vendor-neutral sandbox for experimenting with MCP Gateway-and everything above doubles as CI instructions for self-hosted GitHub runners or ephemeral integration tests.