Choose how to run Infrared
Infrared runs on a Kubernetes cluster we call the management cluster. It holds Infrared's operator, API, UI and MCP server, Argo CD and your gitops repo's components. Your Products then run in zones on that cluster or on workload clusters Infrared registers or builds for you. The same Infrared runs in all four places below; what differs is who runs the management cluster.
| Hosted | GKE | EKS | localred | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs Infrared | darkshift | You, in your Google Cloud project | You, in your AWS account | You, on your Mac |
| Where it lives | infrared.darkshift.io | A GKE cluster from the gcp/gke-cluster template | An EKS cluster from the aws/eks-cluster template | A k3s node in a container machine, at https://*.localred.laptop |
| Good for | Starting on the same day, with nothing to operate | Production on Google Cloud | Production on AWS | Trying Infrared, and building Changes on your own machine |
| How you start | Ask us for an org | ir install | ir install | ir local up |
| Guide | Hosted control plane | Install on GKE | Install on EKS | localred on a Mac |
Wherever Infrared runs, it can deploy to workload clusters in your own clouds: a GKE or EKS cluster it builds from a cluster template with a cloud account you grant it through a role, or any cluster you register with a kubeconfig. darkshift builds, uses and deletes a cluster from each template every day to prove they still work; see Template conformance.
What every self-hosted install needs
- Access to the chart and images. During 0.1, Infrared's chart and component images are published to darkshift's Artifact Registry on Google Cloud and ECR on AWS, not to a public registry. We give your install pull access, and the
irCLI, when you start. Book a call or write to [email protected]. - A license, or 48 hours. A new install runs a 48-hour trial. After it, new agent steps and promotions to production wait until a license from darkshift is installed; everything else keeps running. See Licensing.
- A forge. Your repos and gitops repo live in a GitHub organization you administer, connected through a GitHub App the setup wizard creates, or in Gitea on the management cluster.
- A model key, if agents will build Changes. Each org sets its own Anthropic API key, and every run reports its cost.
How an install comes up
ir install --setup --wait does all of it in one command: the helm install, the setup wizard's steps from a file, and the wait until every Application is Synced and Healthy. From then on Infrared is managed through your gitops repo, and every upgrade is a pull request. See Upgrades.