Cluster Provisioning
Provision a Kubernetes cluster ready for BoltMCP.
Cluster Requirements
BoltMCP runs on any conformant Kubernetes cluster (v1.28+). Pick the tier that matches your deployment:
| Tier | Nodes | Per-node spec | Suitable for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluation | 1 | 2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM | Trying BoltMCP, demos, throwaway dev clusters |
| Production (minimum) | 3 | 2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM | Internal use, small teams, single-region |
| Production (recommended) | 3 | 4 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM | Customer-facing, room to scale replicas and run upgrades |
Create a Cluster
If you already have a suitable cluster, skip this page.
The cluster-creation commands below provision the evaluation tier (a single small node) and are intended for demos and exploration only. For production deployments, increase the node count and machine type to match an appropriate tier from the table above.
Make sure you've logged into the relevant CLI (gcloud auth login / aws configure / az login) before running these commands.
Create the cluster (5-10 minutes):
gcloud container clusters create boltmcp-cluster \
--zone europe-west2-a \
--num-nodes 1 \
--machine-type e2-standard-2Connect kubectl:
gcloud container clusters get-credentials boltmcp-cluster \
--zone europe-west2-akubectl needs the gke-gcloud-auth-plugin to authenticate against GKE. Install it as a gcloud component:
gcloud components install gke-gcloud-auth-pluginIf you installed gcloud via Homebrew on macOS, the plugin binary lands in /opt/homebrew/share/google-cloud-sdk/bin, which is not on PATH by default. Add it to your shell config (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/share/google-cloud-sdk/bin:$PATH"Create the cluster (10-15 minutes):
eksctl create cluster \
--name boltmcp-cluster \
--region eu-west-2 \
--enable-auto-modeConnect kubectl:
aws eks update-kubeconfig \
--name boltmcp-cluster \
--region eu-west-2kubectl should get connected automatically if the cluster created successfully, but the command above is required after fixing a partial or failed run.
If this is the first time you're creating an AKS cluster in this subscription, register the Microsoft.ContainerService resource provider once (otherwise az aks create fails with MissingSubscriptionRegistration):
az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ContainerServiceRegistration runs in the background. Wait for it to report Registered before continuing:
az provider show -n Microsoft.ContainerService --query registrationState -o tsvCreate the resource group and cluster (5-10 minutes):
az group create --name boltmcp-rg --location westeurope
az aks create \
--resource-group boltmcp-rg \
--name boltmcp-cluster \
--node-count 1 \
--node-vm-size Standard_D2s_v3 \
--generate-ssh-keysConnect kubectl:
az aks get-credentials \
--resource-group boltmcp-rg \
--name boltmcp-clusterVerify Cluster Access
Confirm kubectl is pointing at the cluster you intend to install into:
kubectl config current-contextIf it's not the right one, list the available contexts and switch:
kubectl config get-contextskubectl config use-context <name>Finally, verify the cluster is ready:
kubectl get nodesAll nodes should show Ready status.
On EKS Auto Mode there is no static node pool — nodes are provisioned on demand only when there are pods to schedule, so a freshly-created idle cluster has zero nodes. Don't use kubectl get nodes to verify access here; it returns No resources found, which looks like a failure but is expected. Confirm the API is reachable instead:
kubectl get nsYou should see the default namespaces (default, kube-system, …).
The first nodes appear a few minutes after you deploy a workload (e.g. during helm install), once Auto Mode's general-purpose NodePool reconciles and launches capacity. At that point kubectl get nodes will list Ready nodes.
kubectl get nodesAll nodes should show Ready status.