Demo Flux User Interface

In this lesson we review the main graphical user interfaces available for Flux and demonstrate how to install and use them. These UIs help you visualize Flux resources, inspect status and events, and trace dependencies between sources and the Kubernetes objects Flux manages. The Flux ecosystem documentation lists community and vendor projects built on Flux: Flux ecosystem documentation.

A screenshot of the "Flux Ecosystem" webpage showing "Products and Services built on top of Flux" with featured entries (Azure, D2iQ Kommander, Giant Swarm, Weave GitOps) and their logos. Below is a table listing vendors, products/services, and links.

Overview of open-source Flux UI options Two main open-source UI options are covered here:

The Visual Studio Code GitOps extension — browse and interact with Flux resources from inside VS Code.
Weaveworks’ Weave GitOps UI — an open-source web dashboard for monitoring Flux-managed clusters.

Both are complementary: the VS Code extension is optimized for developers working in an editor, while the Weave GitOps dashboard provides a web-based operational view across a cluster. Comparison at a glance

UI	Best for	Primary features
VS Code GitOps extension	Developers working locally in VS Code	In-editor browsing of Clusters, Sources, Workloads, YAML and statuses
Weave GitOps (Weaveworks) dashboard	Cluster operators and teams who want a web dashboard	Applications, Sources, Image Automation, Flux Runtime, dependency graphs, events

VS Code GitOps extension Install the extension from VS Code’s Extensions pane (search for GitOps, GitOps Tools, or the Weaveworks GitOps extension). After installation, a GitOps icon appears in the Activity Bar. The extension exposes panels for:

Clusters — cluster and deployment overview.
Sources — GitRepository, OCIRepository, HelmRepository, Bucket entries (namespace scoped, e.g. flux-system).
Workloads — Kustomizations, HelmReleases, and other workload resources.
Documentation — quick links to relevant docs.

Clicking a resource shows its YAML and status, often removing the need to run kubectl just to inspect objects.

A Visual Studio Code screenshot showing the "Configure GitOps" panel for adding a GitRepository named "podinfo" with the repository URL github.com/stefanprodan/podinfo. The left sidebar lists GitOps resources and a terminal is visible at the bottom.

Weave GitOps (Weaveworks) dashboard Weave GitOps is an open-source web UI you install into a Flux-managed cluster. The official docs include prerequisites and installation steps — Flux must already be installed in the target cluster.

A browser screenshot of the Weave GitOps documentation page titled "Installing Weave GitOps on your Cluster," showing a left-hand navigation menu and main content listing prerequisites and instructions (including installing Flux). The page header shows version 0.20.0 and a green "TIP" box near the top.

Install Weave GitOps dashboard — step-by-step

Install the weave-gitops CLI

Download the appropriate release binary and install it into /usr/local/bin. Example (Linux/macOS):

curl --location "https://github.com/weaveworks/weave-gitops/releases/download/v0.20.0/gitops-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /tmp/gitops
sudo install /tmp/gitops /usr/local/bin/gitops
gitops version

A successful gitops version shows the installed version, for example:

Current Version: 0.20.0
GitCommit: 59acaec4c3dc9d1cf126c24c0962e6c20cf8db13
BuildTime: 2023-03-29T19:15:10Z
Branch: releases/v0.20.0

Create and install the dashboard manifests

You can export the dashboard manifests to source-control or let the CLI apply them directly to the cluster. Exporting into your fleet or cluster repo is recommended for reproducibility. Example — export to a file in a repo:

# from your fleet-infra or cluster repo directory
PASSWORD="your-secure-password"
gitops create dashboard ww-gitops \
  --password="$PASSWORD" \
  --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/weave-gitops-dashboard.yaml

git add ./clusters/my-cluster/weave-gitops-dashboard.yaml
git commit -m "Add Weave GitOps Dashboard"
git push

If you choose to apply directly, the CLI will:

Generate GitOps Dashboard manifests
Verify Flux is installed and retrieve its version
Apply a HelmRepository and HelmRelease for the dashboard
Request reconciliation and wait for readiness

Example CLI output (illustrative):

► Creating GitOps Dashboard objects ...
+ Generating GitOps Dashboard manifests ...
✓ Generated GitOps Dashboard manifests
► Checking for a cluster in the kube config ...
► Checking if Flux is already installed ...
► Getting Flux version ...
✓ Flux v0.41.2 (flux-system) is already installed
► Applying GitOps Dashboard manifests
► Installing the GitOps Dashboard ...
HelmRelease/flux-system/ww-gitops created
HelmRepository/flux-system/ww-gitops created
✓ GitOps Dashboard has been installed
► Request reconciliation of dashboard (timeout 3m0s) ...
◎ Waiting for GitOps Dashboard reconciliation
✓ GitOps Dashboard ww-gitops is ready
✓ Installed GitOps Dashboard

The dashboard is installed as a HelmRepository + HelmRelease so Flux will manage it like any other Flux application.

Verify the pod and service

Confirm the dashboard pod and service are present in the flux-system namespace:

kubectl -n flux-system get po,svc

Sample output (truncated):

NAME                                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/ww-gitops-weave-gitops-9998b579f-wkhj4   1/1     Running   0          57s

NAME                            TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       PORT(S)
service/ww-gitops-weave-gitops   ClusterIP   10.105.176.176   9001/TCP

Expose the dashboard to access it

The service defaults to ClusterIP. Two common access options:

Port-forward locally:

kubectl -n flux-system port-forward svc/ww-gitops-weave-gitops 9001:9001
# then open http://localhost:9001 in your browser

Change the Service to NodePort (edit or patch the Service). Example fragment when editing:

selector:
  app.kubernetes.io/instance: ww-gitops
  app.kubernetes.io/name: weave-gitops
type: NodePort
ports:
- name: http
  port: 9001
  protocol: TCP
  targetPort: http

After switching to NodePort, kubectl get svc shows an external port mapping, e.g.:

service/ww-gitops-weave-gitops  NodePort  10.105.176.176  9001:30713/TCP

Open http://<node-ip>:30713 (or http://localhost:30713 if nodes are locally reachable). Sign in with username admin and the password you supplied at creation. What the dashboard shows Applications and resources The Applications view lists Kustomizations and HelmReleases with their status and source information.

A screenshot of the Weave GitOps web UI showing an "Applications" list with rows for various Kubernetes apps (names, kind, namespace, source) and status indicators showing "Ready." The left sidebar shows navigation items like Applications, Sources, Image Automation, and Flux Runtime.

Selecting an application reveals resources, sync controls (sync, suspend), source/revision details, events, and reconciled resources.

A screenshot of the Weave GitOps (Flux) web UI showing the details for the application "7-demo-kustomize-oci-bb-app-7-7-0," including sync controls, source/revision info, and labels. Below is a resource list showing a Deployment "block-buster-7-7-0" marked Ready.

Dependency graphs The dashboard visualizes dependency graphs between sources, Kustomizations/HelmReleases, and resulting Kubernetes resources—especially helpful when using dependsOn relationships.

A screenshot of the Weave GitOps (Flux) web UI showing an application dependency graph for "7-demo-kustomize-oci-bb-app-7-7-0" with nodes like OCIRepository, Kustomization, namespace, service, and deployment. The left sidebar shows navigation items (Applications, Sources, Image Automation, etc.) and top controls for sync/suspend.

Sources and Image Automation The Sources view lists Git/OCI/Helm/Bucket sources with status, URLs, intervals, and last-updated timestamps.

A screenshot of the Weave GitOps "Sources" dashboard showing a table of source entries with statuses (Ready/Not Ready), messages, URLs, intervals, and last-updated timestamps. A left sidebar shows navigation items like Applications, Sources, Image Automation, Flux Runtime, Notifications, and Docs.

Image Automation shows image repos, detected tags, image policies, and automation resources.

A Weave GitOps dashboard screenshot showing the Image Repositories details page for "8-demo-image-repo-bb-app" with a green "successful scan: found 2 tags" indicator. It lists namespace "flux-system", image "docker.io/siddharth67/bb-app-flux-demo", interval "10s", and tag count "2".

Flux runtime and CRDs The Flux Runtime page displays controllers (helm-controller, kustomize-controller, image-automation-controller, etc.), their versions and readiness, and the CRDs present in the cluster.

A screenshot of the Weave GitOps (Flux Runtime) web UI showing a table of Flux controllers (helm-controller, image-automation-controller, etc.) with their "Ready" status, namespace (flux-system) and image versions.

A screenshot of the Weave GitOps web UI on the "Flux Runtime" page showing a table of Flux CRDs with columns for name, kind, and version. The left sidebar shows navigation items like Applications, Sources, Image Automation, and Flux Runtime.

Important note about permissions

The Weave GitOps dashboard is read-only by default. It surfaces status, events, and resource YAML but does not provide unrestricted write access for creating arbitrary cluster resources. Use Flux manifests (Git or CLI) for declarative changes to cluster state.

If you prefer not to use a web UI, the VS Code GitOps extension is a lightweight in-editor alternative for inspecting Flux resources and YAML. Conclusion This covers the two main open-source UI options for Flux:

VS Code GitOps extension for in-editor workflows.
Weave GitOps dashboard for a cluster-wide web-based view.

Both tools help you monitor Flux-managed clusters—choose based on whether your priority is local developer ergonomics or a centralized operational dashboard. Links and references

Flux ecosystem: https://fluxcd.io/ecosystem/
Weave GitOps documentation: https://www.weave.works/docs/weave-gitops/latest/installation/
Weave GitOps releases: https://github.com/weaveworks/weave-gitops/releases

GitOps Overview

Flux Overview

Source and Kustomize Controller

Helm Controller and OCI Registry

Image Automation Controller

Secret Management & Sign Verification

Notification Controller

Monitoring & User Interface

Demo Flux User Interface

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