Configurations

The Java Operator SDK (JOSDK) provides abstractions that work great out of the box. However, we recognize that default behavior isn’t always suitable for every use case. Numerous configuration options help you tailor the framework to your specific needs.

Configuration options operate at several levels:

• Operator-level using ConfigurationService
• Reconciler-level using ControllerConfiguration
• DependentResource-level using the DependentResourceConfigurator interface
• EventSource-level where some event sources (like InformerEventSource) need fine-tuning to identify which events trigger the associated reconciler

Operator-Level Configuration

Configuration that impacts the entire operator is performed via the ConfigurationService class. ConfigurationService is an abstract class with different implementations based on which framework flavor you use (e.g., Quarkus Operator SDK replaces the default implementation). Configurations initialize with sensible defaults but can be changed during initialization.

For example, to disable CRD validation on startup and configure leader election:

Operator operator = new Operator( override -> override
        .checkingCRDAndValidateLocalModel(false)
        .withLeaderElectionConfiguration(new LeaderElectionConfiguration("bar", "barNS")));

Reconciler-Level Configuration

While reconcilers are typically configured using the @ControllerConfiguration annotation, you can also override configuration at runtime when registering the reconciler with the operator. You can either:

• Pass a completely new ControllerConfiguration instance
• Override specific aspects using a ControllerConfigurationOverrider Consumer (preferred)

Operator operator;
Reconciler reconciler;
...
operator.register(reconciler, configOverrider ->
        configOverrider.withFinalizer("my-nifty-operator/finalizer").withLabelSelector("foo=bar"));

Dynamically Changing Target Namespaces

A controller can be configured to watch a specific set of namespaces in addition of the namespace in which it is currently deployed or the whole cluster. The framework supports dynamically changing the list of these namespaces while the operator is running. When a reconciler is registered, an instance of RegisteredController is returned, providing access to the methods allowing users to change watched namespaces as the operator is running.

A typical scenario would probably involve extracting the list of target namespaces from a ConfigMap or some other input but this part is out of the scope of the framework since this is use-case specific. For example, reacting to changes to a ConfigMap would probably involve registering an associated Informer and then calling the changeNamespaces method on RegisteredController.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    KubernetesClient client = new DefaultKubernetesClient();
    Operator operator = new Operator(client);
    RegisteredController registeredController = operator.register(new WebPageReconciler(client));
    operator.installShutdownHook();
    operator.start();

    // call registeredController further while operator is running
}

If watched namespaces change for a controller, it might be desirable to propagate these changes to InformerEventSources associated with the controller. In order to express this, InformerEventSource implementations interested in following such changes need to be configured appropriately so that the followControllerNamespaceChanges method returns true:

@ControllerConfiguration
public class MyReconciler implements Reconciler<TestCustomResource> {

   @Override
   public Map<String, EventSource> prepareEventSources(
      EventSourceContext<ChangeNamespaceTestCustomResource> context) {

    InformerEventSource<ConfigMap, TestCustomResource> configMapES =
        new InformerEventSource<>(InformerEventSourceConfiguration.from(ConfigMap.class, TestCustomResource.class)
            .withNamespacesInheritedFromController(context)
            .build(), context);

    return EventSourceUtils.nameEventSources(configMapES);
  }

}

As seen in the above code snippet, the informer will have the initial namespaces inherited from controller, but also will adjust the target namespaces if it changes for the controller.

See also the integration test for this feature.

DependentResource-level configuration

It is possible to define custom annotations to configure custom DependentResource implementations. In order to provide such a configuration mechanism for your own DependentResource implementations, they must be annotated with the @Configured annotation. This annotation defines 3 fields that tie everything together:

• by, which specifies which annotation class will be used to configure your dependents,
• with, which specifies the class holding the configuration object for your dependents and
• converter, which specifies the ConfigurationConverter implementation in charge of converting the annotation specified by the by field into objects of the class specified by the with field.

ConfigurationConverter instances implement a single configFrom method, which will receive, as expected, the annotation instance annotating the dependent resource instance to be configured, but it can also extract information from the DependentResourceSpec instance associated with the DependentResource class so that metadata from it can be used in the configuration, as well as the parent ControllerConfiguration, if needed. The role of ConfigurationConverter implementations is to extract the annotation information, augment it with metadata from the DependentResourceSpec and the configuration from the parent controller on which the dependent is defined, to finally create the configuration object that the DependentResource instances will use.

However, one last element is required to finish the configuration process: the target DependentResource class must implement the ConfiguredDependentResource interface, parameterized with the annotation class defined by the @Configured annotation by field. This interface is called by the framework to inject the configuration at the appropriate time and retrieve the configuration, if it’s available.

For example, KubernetesDependentResource, a core implementation that the framework provides, can be configured via the @KubernetesDependent annotation. This set up is configured as follows:

@Configured(
        by = KubernetesDependent.class,
        with = KubernetesDependentResourceConfig.class,
        converter = KubernetesDependentConverter.class)
public abstract class KubernetesDependentResource<R extends HasMetadata, P extends HasMetadata>
        extends AbstractEventSourceHolderDependentResource<R, P, InformerEventSource<R, P>>
        implements ConfiguredDependentResource<KubernetesDependentResourceConfig<R>> {
  // code omitted
}

The @Configured annotation specifies that KubernetesDependentResource instances can be configured by using the @KubernetesDependent annotation, which gets converted into a KubernetesDependentResourceConfig object by a KubernetesDependentConverter. That configuration object is then injected by the framework in the KubernetesDependentResource instance, after it’s been created, because the class implements the ConfiguredDependentResource interface, properly parameterized.

For more information on how to use this feature, we recommend looking at how this mechanism is implemented for KubernetesDependentResource in the core framework, SchemaDependentResource in the samples or CustomAnnotationDep in the BaseConfigurationServiceTest test class.

Loading Configuration from External Sources

JOSDK ships a ConfigLoader that bridges any key-value configuration source to the operator and controller configuration APIs. This lets you drive operator behaviour from environment variables, system properties, YAML files, or any config library (MicroProfile Config, SmallRye Config, Spring Environment, etc.) without writing glue code by hand.

Architecture

The system is built around two thin abstractions:

• ConfigProvider — a single-method interface that resolves a typed value for a dot-separated key:

  public interface ConfigProvider {
      <T> Optional<T> getValue(String key, Class<T> type);
  }
  

• ConfigLoader — reads all known JOSDK keys from a ConfigProvider and returns Consumer<ConfigurationServiceOverrider> / Consumer<ControllerConfigurationOverrider<R>> values that you pass directly to the Operator constructor or operator.register().

The default ConfigLoader (no-arg constructor) stacks environment variables over system properties: environment variables win, system properties are the fallback.

// uses env vars + system properties out of the box
Operator operator = new Operator(ConfigLoader.getDefault().applyConfigs());

Built-in Providers

All string-based providers convert values to the target type automatically. Supported types: String, Boolean, Integer, Long, Double, Duration (ISO-8601, e.g. PT30S).

Plugging in Any Config Library

ConfigProvider is a single-method interface, so adapting any config library takes only a few lines. As an example, here is an adapter for SmallRye Config:

public class SmallRyeConfigProvider implements ConfigProvider {

    private final SmallRyeConfig config;

    public SmallRyeConfigProvider(SmallRyeConfig config) {
        this.config = config;
    }

    @Override
    public <T> Optional<T> getValue(String key, Class<T> type) {
        return config.getOptionalValue(key, type);
    }
}

The same pattern applies to MicroProfile Config, Spring Environment, Apache Commons Configuration, or any other library that can look up typed values by string key.

Wiring Everything Together

Pass the ConfigLoader results when constructing the operator and registering reconcilers:

// Load operator-wide config from a YAML file via SmallRye Config
URL configUrl = MyOperator.class.getResource("/application.yaml");
var configLoader = new ConfigLoader(
    new SmallRyeConfigProvider(
        new SmallRyeConfigBuilder()
            .withSources(new YamlConfigSource(configUrl))
            .build()));

// applyConfigs() → Consumer<ConfigurationServiceOverrider>
Operator operator = new Operator(configLoader.applyConfigs());

// applyControllerConfigs(name) → Consumer<ControllerConfigurationOverrider<R>>
operator.register(new MyReconciler(),
    configLoader.applyControllerConfigs(MyReconciler.NAME));

Only keys that are actually present in the source are applied; everything else retains its programmatic or annotation-based default.

You can also compose multiple sources with explicit priority using AggregatePriorityListConfigProvider:

var configLoader = new ConfigLoader(
    new AggregatePriorityListConfigProvider(List.of(
        new EnvVarConfigProvider(),          // highest priority
        PropertiesConfigProvider.systemProperties(),
        new YamlConfigProvider(Path.of("config/operator.yaml"))  // lowest priority
    )));

Operator-Level Configuration Keys

All operator-level keys are prefixed with josdk..

General

Reconciliation

Workflow

Informer

Dependent Resources

Leader Election

Leader election is activated when at least one josdk.leader-election.* key is present. josdk.leader-election.lease-name is required when any other leader-election key is set. Setting josdk.leader-election.enabled=false suppresses leader election even if other keys are present.

Controller-Level Configuration Keys

All controller-level keys are prefixed with josdk.controller.<controller-name>., where <controller-name> is the value returned by the reconciler’s name (typically set via @ControllerConfiguration(name = "...")).

General

Informer

Retry

If any retry.* key is present, a GenericRetry is configured starting from the default limited exponential retry. Only explicitly set keys override the defaults.

Rate Limiter

The rate limiter is only activated when rate-limiter.limit-for-period is present and has a positive value. rate-limiter.refresh-period is optional and falls back to the default of 10 s.