Create a Workload Cluster

Provision workload clusters for deploying applications and hosting environments.

Summary

Workload clusters run your applications and environments. Once you have a management cluster provisioned, you can create multiple workload clusters to organize your infrastructure by environment, team, or purpose.

Prerequisites

• Platform Admin or Team Admin role
• A management cluster provisioned for your organization
• A cloud account configured in your organization

Clusters Page Overview

After your management cluster is provisioned, the Clusters page shows a graph view of your cluster topology with the management cluster and any existing workload clusters.

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This image is automatically generated from Cypress tests.

From this page, click Add workload cluster to create a new cluster.

Create Workload Cluster

1. Navigate to Clusters in the left sidebar

2. Click Add workload cluster

3. The cluster creation form opens in a side panel:

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This image is automatically generated from Cypress tests.

Cluster Type

Choose the type of cluster to create:

• Physical: Full Kubernetes cluster with dedicated EC2 infrastructure
• Virtual: Lightweight virtual cluster that shares resources with other clusters (faster to create, lower cost)

Cluster Configuration

4. Configure the cluster settings:

   Field	Description	Example
   Cluster name	Unique name for the cluster	development
   Cloud account	AWS account to provision the cluster in	development
   Cloud region	AWS region for the cluster	us-west-2
   AMI type	Amazon Machine Image type	AL2_x86_64
   Instance size	EC2 instance type for nodes	m5.xlarge
   Number of nodes	Initial node count (minimum 2 recommended)	2

5. Optionally select an environment for the cluster to host

Example Configuration

Here's an example of a filled form for a development cluster:

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This image is automatically generated from Cypress tests.

6. Click Add cluster to start provisioning

Monitor Provisioning

After clicking Add cluster, the form closes and the Clusters page shows your new cluster in a provisioning state:

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This image is automatically generated from Cypress tests.

Workload cluster provisioning typically takes 15-20 minutes. You can:

• View provisioning progress in the cluster details panel
• Check the Logs tab for real-time provisioning output
• Monitor the cluster status in ArgoCD

Instance Size Guidelines

Use Case	Recommended Instance	Notes
Development	m5.xlarge	Good balance for dev workloads
Staging	m5.xlarge - m5.2xlarge	Match production sizing
Production	m5.2xlarge or larger	Size based on workload requirements

Important Notes

• Physical clusters require more resources and take longer to provision than virtual clusters
• Cluster names must be unique within your organization
• You cannot change the cluster type after creation
• The minimum recommended node count is 2 for high availability

What's Next?

After your workload cluster is provisioned:

• Register applications to deploy to your cluster
• Create environments to organize your deployments
• Set up pipeline templates for automated deployments