Installation
This topic describes how you can install Harness Delegate and enable chaos on it. You can follow the interactive demo or the steps to install Harness Delegate.
Harness provides two delegate image types:
- Standard Delegate Image (Recommended) - Includes all required binaries for chaos experimentation and discovery. Follow the standard installation steps below.
- Delegate-Minimal Image - Lightweight image that requires additional configuration. See Using Delegate-Minimal Image if you specifically need to use the minimal image.
Standard Delegate Installation
This section covers the installation of the standard delegate image.
Prerequisites
Interactive Demo
Navigate through the demo below to see how to create an environment, a new infrastructure, a new connector and a Delegate.
If you have created a connector and a Harness Delegate earlier, you can find their names in the list that is displayed while selecting the connector and Delegate, respectively. Select it instead of creating a new one.
Step-by-Step Installation
-
Select the Environment you created, and choose the Infrastructure type. In this example, select Kubernetes and click + New Infrastructure.
-
To use Harness Delegate, select Yes. To use a dedicated chaos infrastructure, select No. In this example, select Yes, and click Next.
-
Provide a Name, Deployment Type, Select Infrastructure Type, and provide Cluster Details, such as Connector, and Namespace.
a. To create a new connector, go to Create Kubernetes Connector. Harness CE supports creating two types of connectors:
b. While creating a Kubernetes connector, select or create a new Delegate. Once your Delegate shows up in the list, enter its name in the search bar, and select Save and Continue. This will test your connection and describe if it was a success or no. Contact Harness Support if you encounter issues with the verification.
-
To Enable Chaos and use Configure Advanced Settings (Optional), navigate to Environments and Enable Chaos on the infrastructure you created earlier.
-
Choose between Beginner or Expert and click Go.
-
You can choose to provide additional configurations in the Configure Advanced Settings (Optional) section to configure chaos runner and Discovery Agent and click Go. This creates application maps and chaos experiments for you.
- Ensure your Delegate version is
24.09.83900or above to support executing chaos experiments using DDCR. - Currently, DDCR (or Harness Delegate) can only be installed to execute Kubernetes-based faults. This means you can only create Kubernetes connectors.
- To execute faults on Linux and Windows, install Linux and Windows agents respectively.
- To configure mTLS with DDCR and Discovery Agent, go to mTLS Support.
- To configure mTLS with DDCR and Discovery Agent proxy settings, go to proxy Support.
Using Delegate-Minimal Image
The standard delegate image includes all required binaries for chaos experimentation and discovery out-of-the-box. Use the steps above for standard delegate installation.
If you are using the delegate-minimal image, additional setup is required as described below.
By default, chaos experimentation and discovery are not supported with the delegate-minimal image. The delegate-minimal image does not include kubectl and go-template binaries, which are required for discovery and chaos experimentation.
Prerequisites for Delegate-Minimal
If you are using a delegate-minimal image, you must install kubectl and go-template binaries using one of the following methods:
Option 1: Create a Custom Delegate Image
Create your own custom version of the delegate-minimal image with kubectl and go-template binaries pre-installed.
Option 2: Use INIT_SCRIPT Environment Variable (Recommended)
Provide an installation script in the INIT_SCRIPT environment variable of the delegate deployment:
- env:
- name: INIT_SCRIPT
value: |
##kubectl
curl -L0 https://app.harness.io/public/shared/tools/kubectl/release/v1.28.7/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl -o kubectl
chmod +x ./kubectl
mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/
## go-template
curl -L0 https://app.harness.io/public/shared/tools/go-template/release/v0.4.1/bin/linux/amd64/go-template -o go-template
chmod +x ./go-template
mv go-template /usr/local/bin/
View Complete Deployment Example
Below is a complete example of a delegate deployment using the minimal image with the INIT_SCRIPT configuration:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
annotations:
deployment.kubernetes.io/revision: "12"
meta.helm.sh/release-name: minimal-delegate
meta.helm.sh/release-namespace: harness-delegate-ng
creationTimestamp: "2025-12-24T14:59:12Z"
generation: 14
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/instance: minimal-delegate
app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: Helm
app.kubernetes.io/name: minimal-delegate
harness.io/name: minimal-delegate
helm.sh/chart: harness-delegate-ng-1.0.30
name: minimal-delegate
namespace: harness-delegate-ng
resourceVersion: "1766592671187615000"
uid: e722c89a-b32a-4967-b0d1-18b30875ec5a
spec:
minReadySeconds: 120
progressDeadlineSeconds: 600
replicas: 1
revisionHistoryLimit: 10
selector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/instance: minimal-delegate
app.kubernetes.io/name: minimal-delegate
harness.io/name: minimal-delegate
strategy:
rollingUpdate:
maxSurge: 25%
maxUnavailable: 25%
type: RollingUpdate
template:
metadata:
annotations:
checksum/configmap: <checksum-value>
checksum/secret: <checksum-value>
prometheus.io/path: /api/metrics
prometheus.io/port: "3460"
prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
creationTimestamp: null
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/instance: minimal-delegate
app.kubernetes.io/name: minimal-delegate
harness.io/name: minimal-delegate
spec:
containers:
- env:
- name: INIT_SCRIPT
value: |
##kubectl
curl -L0 https://app.harness.io/public/shared/tools/kubectl/release/v1.28.7/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl -o kubectl
chmod +x ./kubectl
mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/
## go-template
curl -L0 https://app.harness.io/public/shared/tools/go-template/release/v0.4.1/bin/linux/amd64/go-template -o go-template
chmod +x ./go-template
mv go-template /usr/local/bin/
envFrom:
- configMapRef:
name: minimal-delegate
- secretRef:
name: minimal-delegate
- configMapRef:
name: minimal-delegate-proxy
optional: true
- secretRef:
name: minimal-delegate-proxy
optional: true
- configMapRef:
name: minimal-delegate-shared-certificates
optional: true
image: us-docker.pkg.dev/gar-prod-setup/harness-public/harness/delegate:25.08.86602.minimal
imagePullPolicy: Always
livenessProbe:
failureThreshold: 3
httpGet:
path: /api/health
port: 3460
scheme: HTTP
initialDelaySeconds: 30
periodSeconds: 20
successThreshold: 1
timeoutSeconds: 1
name: delegate
ports:
- containerPort: 8080
protocol: TCP
- containerPort: 3460
name: api
protocol: TCP
resources: {}
securityContext:
allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
runAsUser: 0
startupProbe:
failureThreshold: 40
httpGet:
path: /api/health
port: 3460
scheme: HTTP
initialDelaySeconds: 10
periodSeconds: 10
successThreshold: 1
timeoutSeconds: 1
terminationMessagePath: /dev/termination-log
terminationMessagePolicy: File
dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
restartPolicy: Always
schedulerName: default-scheduler
securityContext:
fsGroup: 1001
serviceAccount: minimal-delegate
serviceAccountName: minimal-delegate
terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 600
Harness Terraform Provider
Go to create Harness Delegate (DDCR) to create a Harness Delegate using Harness Terraform provider.