Configuration: Kubernetes Context¶

How kubectl context relates to Hydra operations.

Requirement¶

All hydra gitops commands require a valid kubectl context pointing to the correct cluster.

Warning¶

hydra gitops validate-current-context exists only for the hydra gitops command surface.

The reason is that hydra gitops uses the local Hydra context as input, so HYDRA_CONTEXT and --hydra-context can be considered during validation. The future hydra cluster command surface does not use local Hydra files, so HYDRA_CONTEXT cannot be taken into account there.

Safety Guard¶

Hydra validates the active kubectl context against allowedContexts before any cluster operation:

# In config.yaml or values
kubectl:
  allowedContexts:
    - prod-admin
    - prod-admin@prod

Run the validation explicitly:

hydra gitops validate-current-context prod

Managing Contexts¶

# List available contexts
kubectl config get-contexts

# Switch context
kubectl config use-context prod-admin

# Verify
kubectl cluster-info
hydra gitops validate-current-context prod

Common Mistakes¶

Problem	Solution
Wrong context active	`kubectl config use-context <correct>`
Context name doesn't match allowedContexts	Update `allowedContexts` in config
Context points to wrong cluster	Check kubeconfig server URLs

HYDRA_CONTEXT vs kubectl context¶

	HYDRA_CONTEXT	kubectl context
Purpose	Selects Hydra configuration (apps, values)	Selects K8s API endpoint
Set via	`export HYDRA_CONTEXT=prod`	`kubectl config use-context`
Scope	Hydra CLI only	All kubectl/K8s tools

For hydra gitops, both must align to work correctly.

For the planned hydra cluster command surface, only the live cluster side can be validated because no local Hydra context is involved.