1. Install Radius

Install Radius on a Kubernetes cluster and initialize your first application

In part one, you will install Radius on an existing Kubernetes cluster.

Prerequisites

For this guide you only need a Kubernetes cluster. To install Radius, your user must have the cluster-admin role. Radius supports AKS, EKS, k3d, and kind clusters. Running a local cluster with k3d or kind is recommended.

Install the Radius CLI

Install the Radius CLI on your workstation with the appropriate installation script:


To try out a stable release visit the latest docs.

To install the latest edge release, first install ORAS. Then, run the following command to install the Radius CLI:

$script=iwr -useb "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/radius-project/radius/main/deploy/install.ps1"; $block=[ScriptBlock]::Create($script); invoke-command -ScriptBlock $block -ArgumentList edge

To try out a stable release visit the latest docs.

Edge version installation via WinGet is not supported. To install the latest edge release, use the install script in the Windows PowerShell tab.


To try out a stable release visit the latest docs.

To install the latest edge release, first install ORAS. Then, run the following command to install the Radius CLI:

curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/radius-project/radius/main/deploy/install.sh" | /bin/bash -s edge

To try out a stable release visit the latest docs.

To install the latest edge release, first install ORAS. Then, run the following command to install the Radius CLI:

wget -q "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/radius-project/radius/main/deploy/install.sh" -O - | /bin/bash -s edge

Open in GitHub Codespaces


Visit Radius GitHub releases to select and download a specific version of the Radius CLI.

Verify the Radius CLI is installed correctly by running rad version.

Install Radius

Create a new directory for the Radius Demo application:

mkdir radius
cd radius

Ensure your cluster is set as your current context with kubectl config current-context. If the context needs updating, change it with kubectl config set-context <context-name>. Then install Radius with the rad initialize command:

rad initialize --preview

Select Yes to set up an application in the current directory.

Example output:

Initializing Radius...

✅ Install Radius edge
    - Kubernetes cluster: k3d-k3s-default
    - Kubernetes namespace: radius-system
✅ Create new environment default
    - Kubernetes namespace: default
    - Recipe pack: default
✅ Scaffold application radius
✅ Update local configuration

Initialization complete! Have a RAD time 😎

Verify the pods are running:

kubectl get pods -n radius-system

You should see output similar to:

NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
applications-rp-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx      1/1     Running   0          1m
bicep-de-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx             1/1     Running   0          1m
contour-contour-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx      1/1     Running   0          1m
contour-envoy-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx        1/1     Running   0          1m
controller-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx           1/1     Running   0          1m
dashboard-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx            1/1     Running   0          1m
dynamic-rp-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx           1/1     Running   0          1m
ucp-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx                  1/1     Running   0          1m

For more details on installing Radius, see How to Install Radius.

Next steps

In part two of this guide, you will deploy the Radius Demo sample application.

Next step: Deploy an application