Development Setup

This guide walks you through setting up a local development environment for the Splunk Operator.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Notes
Go	1.26.2+	See GO_VERSION in .env for the exact version used in CI
Docker Engine	Latest	Required for building container images
Operator SDK	v1.42.0	See OPERATOR_SDK_VERSION in .env
kubectl	v1.29+	For interacting with your test cluster

Installing the Operator SDK

git clone -b v1.42.0 https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk
cd operator-sdk
make install

You may need to add $GOPATH/bin to your PATH:

export PATH=${PATH}:${GOPATH}/bin

Recommended Go tools

These are used by various make targets:

go install golang.org/x/lint/golint@latest
go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/cover@latest
go install github.com/mattn/goveralls@latest
go install github.com/mikefarah/yq/v3@latest
go install github.com/go-delve/delve/cmd/dlv@latest

Cloning the Repository

git clone git@github.com:splunk/splunk-operator.git
cd splunk-operator

Common Makefile Targets

Run make help to see all available targets grouped by category. The most frequently used ones during development:

Development

Target	Description
make fmt	Format Go source files
make vet	Run go vet on the codebase
make manifests	Generate CRDs, RBAC, and webhook manifests
make generate	Generate DeepCopy methods and other codegen
make build	Build the manager binary
make test	Run unit tests with coverage output

Build & Push

Target	Description
make docker-build IMG=<image>	Build the operator container image
make docker-buildx IMG=<image>	Build multi-platform images (linux/amd64, linux/arm64)
make docker-push IMG=<image>	Push the image to a registry

Deploy & Run

Target	Description
make run	Run the operator locally against your current kubeconfig
make install	Install CRDs into the cluster
make uninstall	Remove CRDs from the cluster
make deploy IMG=<image>	Deploy the operator to a cluster
make undeploy	Remove the operator from the cluster

Documentation

Target	Description
make docs-preview	Preview documentation locally at http://localhost:4000/splunk-operator

Development Workflow

A typical change follows this flow:

# 1. Create a feature branch from develop
git checkout -b feature/your-feature develop

# 2. Make your code changes
#    - API types:       api/{group}/v4/*.go
#    - Controllers:     internal/controller/{group}/*.go
#    - Business logic:  pkg/splunk/{group}/**/*.go

# 3. If you modified API types, regenerate manifests and code
make manifests generate

# 4. Format and vet
make fmt vet

# 5. Run unit tests
make test

# 6. Build
make build

Deploying Locally

The make deploy command installs all necessary resources (RBAC, services, configmaps, deployment) into the splunk-operator namespace:

# Cluster-wide (watches all namespaces)
make deploy IMG=docker.io/splunk/splunk-operator:<tag>

# Namespace-scoped
make deploy IMG=docker.io/splunk/splunk-operator:<tag> WATCH_NAMESPACE="namespace1"

# With a specific Splunk Enterprise version
make deploy IMG=docker.io/splunk/splunk-operator:<tag> \
  WATCH_NAMESPACE="namespace1" \
  RELATED_IMAGE_SPLUNK_ENTERPRISE="splunk/splunk:edge"

Or run the operator as a local foreground process:

make run

This uses your current kubeconfig context (~/.kube/config).

Environment Variables

Key variables used during development and testing:

Variable	Default	Description
NAMESPACE	splunk-operator	Target namespace
WATCH_NAMESPACE	"" (all)	Namespaces the operator watches
SPLUNK_ENTERPRISE_IMAGE	See .env	Splunk Enterprise image
SPLUNK_GENERAL_TERMS	""	Must be set to value in README
LOG_LEVEL	info	Operator log level (debug, info, warn, error)
LOG_FORMAT	json	Log format (json or text)

Debugging Tips

# Watch pods being reconciled
kubectl get pods -n splunk-operator -w

# Stream operator logs
kubectl logs -n splunk-operator deployment/splunk-operator-controller-manager -f

# Describe a Custom Resource
kubectl describe <cr-type> <cr-name> -n <namespace>

Common Issues

Problem	Solution
CRD not found	Run make install to install CRDs
Permission errors	Check RBAC with kubectl auth can-i --list
Image pull errors	Verify the IMG variable and registry access