# 03 — Installing Argo CD

Your cluster is alive but empty — it can run containers, but nothing is
telling it to run anything yet. This doc installs Argo CD, the piece that
watches Git and does that telling from now on.

## Why this one step is imperative

Everything else in this repo — every app, every future addition — gets
deployed *by* Argo CD, driven from Git. Argo CD itself is the one exception:
something has to exist in the cluster *before* it can start reading Git, so
installing it can't itself be a GitOps-managed step. This is normal, and
every GitOps setup has some version of this same bootstrap moment. We
install it the straightforward way the Argo CD project documents — one
`kubectl apply` of their maintained manifest bundle — rather than adding an
extra tool (Helm, an operator) just to install the GitOps tool itself.

## What you're installing

Argo CD is itself a set of things running inside your cluster: an API
server, a piece that watches Git repos, a piece that computes diffs against
the live cluster, and a UI. You're about to install all of it with one
command, into its own `argocd` namespace, so it stays cleanly separated
from the apps it will go on to manage.

## Steps

Exact commands: [`argocd/README.md`](../argocd/README.md). Summary of what
each stage does:

1. **Install.** `kubectl apply` the official manifest bundle into a new
   `argocd` namespace. This creates Argo CD's own pods *and* a handful of
   CRDs (see [`docs/glossary.md`](glossary.md)) — the most important being
   `Application`, the resource type you'll use for every app from here on,
   including the demo app and the app-of-apps.

2. **Get the initial admin password.** Auto-generated on first install and
   stored as a Kubernetes Secret.

3. **Reach it.** Port-forward the Argo CD UI/API to your local machine and
   log in with the `argocd` CLI (and optionally, a browser).

4. **Apply the app-of-apps.** This is the moment the GitOps loop actually
   starts — see [`docs/04-app-of-apps.md`](04-app-of-apps.md) next.

> **Ask Claude:** "why is a port-forward good enough for now, and what
> would I need instead to reach this Argo CD from somewhere other than my
> own machine?" — a preview of the Ingress topic in
> [`docs/09-growing-up.md`](09-growing-up.md).

## Checklist

- [ ] Argo CD pods all `Running`/`Ready` in the `argocd` namespace
- [ ] Initial admin password retrieved
- [ ] Logged in via `argocd login` (CLI) and/or the UI in a browser

Once you're logged in, continue to
[`docs/04-app-of-apps.md`](04-app-of-apps.md).