I was just telling some ex coworker friends that there was a great need for a compose frontend to more powerful infra backends, and this feels like the answer.
Once I get working on it I’ll try to add health check support. That is crucial for a lot of what we’re working on.
the standard does not make it mandatory that underlying system should be docker compose (the reference server). it can be anything.
IMHO - kappal is the first project that takes your compose yml file and transparently/drop-in runs it on kubernetes. there is nothing extra you need. It is useful for people who want to maintain their stack as close to production as possible (kubernetes).
If that's not a big goal for you, then this is not very useful for you. But I'd argue ...why do you care if the compose yml is the only think you are using. you get all of kubernetes.
It takes ur standard docker compose file and runs it transparently in kubernetes (k3s actually). So ur devs don't have cognitive dissonance between testing ur stack locally on ur laptop and making it work on kubernetes in production.
It is primarily meant as a dev tool on ur laptop, and as a replacement for docker compose.
With a single Tilt file combined with a docker compose file, almost all of the infrastructure you need is configured on a local machine. It also supports running kubernetes (most of the docs are around this), but you do not necessarily need to it it.My goto when I have more then 2 docker containers/services I want to keep changing code for. Some teams I work with usually have 20 such containers for local dev.
And yes, you can even nest Tilt files and even write normal python if you want to mix things up.
if you ever wanna try it again - use kappal. you will get a full k8s but with the UX of docker compose.
So is any of this tested?