Documentation
Getting Started

Getting Started

Get ContextForge up and running in your Kubernetes cluster in just a few minutes.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

  • Kubernetes cluster version 1.24 or later
  • Helm version 3.0 or later
  • kubectl configured to access your cluster
  • cluster-admin permissions (for installing CRDs and webhooks)

Installation

Step 1: Add the Helm Repository 

helm repo add contextforge https://ctxforge.io
helm repo update

Step 2: Install ContextForge 

helm install contextforge contextforge/contextforge \
  --namespace ctxforge-system \
  --create-namespace

Step 3: Verify the Installation

Check that the operator is running:

kubectl get pods -n ctxforge-system

You should see output similar to:

NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
contextforge-operator-7b9f4d5c6-x2k8p   1/1     Running   0          30s

Enable Header Propagation

To enable automatic header propagation for a pod, add the following annotations:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: my-service
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        ctxforge.io/enabled: "true"
      annotations:
        ctxforge.io/enabled: "true"
        ctxforge.io/headers: "x-request-id,x-tenant-id"
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: my-app:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080
What do these annotations do?
  • ctxforge.io/enabled: "true" — Tells ContextForge to inject the sidecar proxy into this pod
  • ctxforge.io/headers — Comma-separated list of headers to propagate

Verify It’s Working

After deploying your annotated workload, verify the sidecar was injected:

kubectl get pod my-service-xxxxx -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].name}'

You should see both your app container and the ctxforge-proxy container:

app ctxforge-proxy

Test Header Propagation

Send a request with a custom header:

curl -H "x-request-id: test-123" http://your-service/api/endpoint

Check the logs of downstream services — they should all receive the x-request-id header!

Next Steps

Installation