Spinnaker Cheat Sheet

Overview

Spinnaker is an open-source, multi-cloud continuous delivery platform originally built by Netflix. It supports deploying to AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, and other cloud providers through a unified pipeline interface. Spinnaker provides deployment strategies like blue-green, canary, rolling updates, and custom pipelines with manual judgments.

Spinnaker separates the concepts of applications, clusters, server groups, and load balancers into a cloud-agnostic model. Its pipeline system supports complex deployment workflows with stages for building, testing, deploying, and promoting across multiple environments and cloud providers.

Installation

Using Halyard (Official CLI)

# Install Halyard
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spinnaker/halyard/master/install/debian/InstallHalyard.sh
sudo bash InstallHalyard.sh

# Or on macOS
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spinnaker/halyard/master/install/macos/InstallHalyard.sh
sudo bash InstallHalyard.sh

# Verify
hal version list

Configure and Deploy

# Set Spinnaker version
hal config version edit --version 1.32.0

# Configure storage (S3 example)
hal config storage s3 edit \
  --access-key-id $AWS_ACCESS_KEY \
  --secret-access-key --region us-east-1 \
  --bucket my-spinnaker-bucket
hal config storage edit --type s3

# Configure Kubernetes provider
hal config provider kubernetes enable
hal config provider kubernetes account add my-k8s \
  --context $(kubectl config current-context) \
  --provider-version v2

# Deploy Spinnaker
hal deploy apply

# Connect to Spinnaker UI
hal deploy connect
# UI: http://localhost:9000
# API: http://localhost:8084

Core Commands (Halyard)

Command	Description
`hal version list`	List available Spinnaker versions
`hal config version edit --version <v>`	Set Spinnaker version
`hal deploy apply`	Apply configuration and deploy
`hal deploy connect`	Forward ports to Spinnaker services
`hal config provider <provider> enable`	Enable a cloud provider
`hal config ci <ci> enable`	Enable CI integration
`hal config artifact <type> enable`	Enable artifact type
`hal config security authn <type> enable`	Configure authentication
`hal shutdown`	Stop Halyard daemon

Spin CLI

# Install spin CLI
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/spinnaker-artifacts/spin/latest/linux/amd64/spin
chmod +x spin
sudo mv spin /usr/local/bin/

# Configure
spin config edit --gate-endpoint http://localhost:8084

# Application management
spin application list
spin application save --application-name my-app \
  --owner-email team@example.com \
  --cloud-providers kubernetes

# Pipeline management
spin pipeline list --application my-app
spin pipeline get --application my-app --name deploy-prod
spin pipeline save --file pipeline.json
spin pipeline execute --application my-app --name deploy-prod

# Manual execution with parameters
spin pipeline execute --application my-app --name deploy-prod \
  --parameter-file params.json

Pipeline Configuration

Basic Pipeline (JSON)

{
  "name": "Deploy to Production",
  "application": "my-app",
  "stages": [
    {
      "type": "bake",
      "name": "Bake AMI",
      "package": "my-app",
      "baseOs": "ubuntu",
      "regions": ["us-east-1"]
    },
    {
      "type": "deploy",
      "name": "Deploy to Prod",
      "clusters": [
        {
          "account": "my-aws",
          "application": "my-app",
          "capacity": {
            "desired": 3,
            "max": 6,
            "min": 3
          },
          "strategy": "redblack"
        }
      ],
      "requisiteStageRefIds": ["1"]
    }
  ],
  "triggers": [
    {
      "type": "docker",
      "registry": "index.docker.io",
      "repository": "myorg/my-app",
      "tag": "latest",
      "enabled": true
    }
  ]
}

Kubernetes Deploy Stage

{
  "type": "deployManifest",
  "name": "Deploy to Kubernetes",
  "account": "my-k8s-account",
  "cloudProvider": "kubernetes",
  "manifests": [],
  "source": "artifact",
  "manifestArtifactId": "deployment-manifest",
  "namespaceOverride": "production"
}

Configuration

Cloud Providers

# AWS
hal config provider aws enable
hal config provider aws account add my-aws \
  --account-id 123456789012 \
  --regions us-east-1,us-west-2

# GCP
hal config provider google enable
hal config provider google account add my-gcp \
  --project my-project \
  --json-path /path/to/service-account.json

# Kubernetes
hal config provider kubernetes enable
hal config provider kubernetes account add my-k8s \
  --context my-context \
  --namespaces default,staging,production

CI Integration

# Jenkins
hal config ci jenkins enable
hal config ci jenkins master add my-jenkins \
  --address https://jenkins.example.com \
  --username admin \
  --password

# GitHub Actions (via webhook triggers)
# Configure in pipeline trigger settings

Notifications

# Slack
hal config notification slack enable
hal config notification slack edit \
  --bot-name spinnaker \
  --token $SLACK_TOKEN

# Email
hal config notification email enable
hal config notification email edit \
  --smtp-host smtp.example.com \
  --smtp-port 587

Advanced Usage

Canary Analysis (Kayenta)

# Enable canary
hal config canary enable
hal config canary google enable
hal config canary google account add my-canary \
  --project my-project \
  --json-path /path/to/sa.json \
  --bucket my-canary-bucket

# Or with Prometheus
hal config canary prometheus enable
hal config canary prometheus account add my-prom \
  --base-url http://prometheus:9090

Pipeline Templates

# Save pipeline as template
spin pipeline-template save --file template.json

# List templates
spin pipeline-template list

# Create pipeline from template
spin pipeline save --file pipeline-from-template.json

Pipeline Expressions (SpEL)

{
  "stages": [
    {
      "type": "wait",
      "name": "Conditional Wait",
      "skipWait": "${trigger.parameters.skipWait == 'true'}",
      "waitTime": "${trigger.parameters.waitMinutes ?: 5}"
    }
  ]
}

Manual Judgment Stage

{
  "type": "manualJudgment",
  "name": "Approve Production Deploy",
  "instructions": "Review the canary analysis before promoting.",
  "judgmentInputs": [
    { "value": "approve" },
    { "value": "reject" }
  ],
  "notifications": [
    {
      "type": "slack",
      "channel": "#deployments",
      "when": ["manualJudgment"]
    }
  ]
}

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
`hal deploy apply` hangs	Check Halyard daemon: `hal shutdown` then restart
Services not starting	Check `kubectl get pods -n spinnaker` and pod logs
Pipeline stuck	Check stage logs in UI; verify cloud provider creds
Artifact not found	Verify artifact account config in Halyard
Auth redirect issues	Check `hal config security authn` settings
OOM on clouddriver	Increase memory: `hal config deploy component-sizing clouddriver container limits memory 2Gi`

# Check service status
hal deploy details

# View service logs
kubectl logs -n spinnaker deployment/spin-clouddriver -f
kubectl logs -n spinnaker deployment/spin-orca -f

# Backup Spinnaker config
hal backup create

# Restore from backup
hal backup restore --backup-path /path/to/backup.tar

# Validate configuration
hal config