Kubernetes - Trigger

The official Helm chart installs the full Trigger.dev stack into a Kubernetes namespace. Read the self-hosting overview first.

Pick a path and stay on it. Run the evaluation install to try Trigger.dev with everything bundled in-cluster - one helm install, default values, no external dependencies. Run the production install for real workloads: external Postgres, Redis, ClickHouse, and object storage, your own secrets, and HA on the datastores you already operate. Each configuration decision below belongs to one path or the other.

This guide alone is unlikely to produce a hardened production deployment - securing, scaling, and reliability-tuning your cluster remain yours to own. Should the burden get too much, we'd be happy to see you on Trigger.dev cloud where we deal with these concerns for you.

Architecture

The chart deploys a webapp, a supervisor, and the datastores they depend on. The supervisor pulls runs from the webapp and schedules each one onto a worker node, which executes the task in a container sized by its machine preset.

mermaid

flowchart TD
  webapp["webapp
API + dashboard"]
  supervisor["supervisor"]
  workers["worker nodes
task containers"]
  pg[("Postgres
primary DB")]
  redis[("Redis
queue / state")]
  ch[("ClickHouse
task events v2")]
  obj[("object storage
MinIO / external S3")]
  reg[("registry
deploy images")]
  s2[("s2 / s2-lite
realtime streams v2")]

  webapp --> pg
  webapp --> redis
  webapp --> ch
  webapp --> obj
  webapp --> s2
  webapp -->|worker token| supervisor
  supervisor --> workers
  workers --> reg

Each component maps to a top-level key in values.yaml: webapp, supervisor, postgres, redis, electric, clickhouse, s3 (object storage), s2, and registry. The datastores default to deploy: true and run in-cluster; set deploy: false with an external block to bring your own. The registry is the exception - it defaults to deploy: false, so you point it at an external one. Webapp settings live under webapp, supervisor settings under supervisor.config, and each service takes extraEnvVars for anything else.

Requirements

Prerequisites

Kubernetes cluster 1.19+
Helm 3.8+
Kubectl with cluster access

Resources

The following are minimum requirements for running the entire stack on Kubernetes:

Cluster resources:

6+ vCPU total
12+ GB RAM total
Persistent volume support

Individual components:

Webapp: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM
Supervisor: 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM
PostgreSQL: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM
Redis: 0.5 vCPU, 1 GB RAM
ClickHouse: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM
Object Storage: 0.5 vCPU, 1 GB RAM
Workers: Depending on concurrency and machine preset

These requirements scale based on your task concurrency and can be adjusted via the resources section in your values.yaml. For example:

yaml

webapp:
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 1Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 2000m
      memory: 4Gi

Evaluation install

Bundled datastores let you run the whole stack with a single command and no external services. The default values are insecure and are only suitable for testing - for real workloads, follow the production install instead.

<Steps> <Step title="Install the chart with default values"> ```bash helm upgrade -n trigger --install trigger \ oci://ghcr.io/triggerdotdev/charts/trigger \ --version "^4.5.0" \ --create-namespace ```

The chart deploys the webapp, supervisor, and bundled Postgres, Redis, Electric, ClickHouse, MinIO, and s2-lite. The registry is not deployed by default - configure an external one before deploying tasks.

</Step> <Step title="Port-forward the webapp"> ```bash kubectl port-forward svc/trigger-webapp 3040:3030 -n trigger ```

The dashboard is now reachable at `http://localhost:3040`.

</Step> <Step title="Log in with the magic link"> Default installs print the login link to the webapp logs instead of sending email.

```bash
kubectl logs -n trigger deployment/trigger-webapp | grep -A1 "magic link"
```

Open the printed link to sign in.

</Step> </Steps>

Verify it

Confirm every component reached a healthy state:

bash

kubectl get pods -n trigger

The webapp, supervisor, and each bundled datastore pod should report Running with all containers READY. Migrations and bootstrap run inside the webapp pod rather than as separate jobs, so if the webapp stays unready, check its logs. If a pod is stuck in Pending or CrashLoopBackOff, jump to Troubleshooting.

Once you can sign in and trigger a run, you've validated the stack. For a deployment that survives restarts, upgrades, and load, move on to the production install.

Production install

Running external datastores is the requirement that separates a production install from an evaluation one. You supply your own Postgres, Redis, ClickHouse, and object storage, manage secrets yourself, and point the chart at each service. The steps below layer onto the same helm upgrade command, driven by a custom values file.

Secrets

Application, control-plane, and bundled-datastore secrets left unset are generated on first install and retained across helm upgrade - they are never rotated automatically, so sessions, encrypted data, and datastore volumes survive upgrades. This auto-generation is the default and needs no configuration.

For production, supply your own Secret instead so credentials live outside the release. With secrets.existingSecret set, the chart generates nothing and reads every key from your Secret; a preflight check fails the install - before touching a running release - and lists any keys it can't find.

To pin values inline instead of letting the chart generate them - for example to share MANAGED_WORKER_SECRET with an external supervisor - set them under secrets:

yaml

secrets:
  enabled: true
  sessionSecret: "your-32-char-hex-secret-1"
  magicLinkSecret: "your-32-char-hex-secret-2"
  # ...

To use an existing Secret instead, leave the values unset and set existingSecret. It must contain at least SESSION_SECRET, MAGIC_LINK_SECRET, ENCRYPTION_KEY, PROVIDER_SECRET, COORDINATOR_SECRET, and MANAGED_WORKER_SECRET - plus s3-auth-access-key-id and s3-auth-secret-access-key if you deploy the bundled MinIO with s3.auth.existingSecret cleared:

yaml

secrets:
  enabled: false
  existingSecret: "your-existing-secret"

The chart wires PROVIDER_SECRET and COORDINATOR_SECRET into the webapp deployment, and the pre-upgrade check requires both, so an existing Secret must include them. For a deployment that already runs, add them before upgrading:

bash

kubectl patch secret my-trigger-secrets -n trigger --type merge -p \
  "{\"stringData\":{\"PROVIDER_SECRET\":\"$(openssl rand -hex 16)\",\"COORDINATOR_SECRET\":\"$(openssl rand -hex 16)\"}}"

There is no clean migration for a compromised ENCRYPTION_KEY: changing it makes existing encrypted data unreadable. If a deployment is still running a previously published default and cannot rotate yet, set ALLOW_INSECURE_DEFAULT_SECRETS=true on the webapp to keep booting while you plan a migration.

<Warning> GitOps tools that render with `helm template` (e.g. Argo CD) cannot read the existing secret, so they regenerate auto-generated values on every sync - which rotates them. If you deploy via GitOps, always supply your own `secrets.existingSecret` (and datastore credentials) so nothing is generated in-cluster. </Warning>

Custom values

Most values map directly to the environment variables documented in the webapp and supervisor environment variable overview. Environment variables use UPPER_SNAKE_CASE; Helm values use camelCase:

bash

# Environment variable
APP_ORIGIN=https://trigger.example.com

# Becomes Helm value
webapp:
  appOrigin: "https://trigger.example.com"

Print the full default surface for the version you're deploying:

bash

# Specific version
helm show values oci://ghcr.io/triggerdotdev/charts/trigger \
  --version "4.5.0"

# Latest v4
helm show values oci://ghcr.io/triggerdotdev/charts/trigger \
  --version "^4.5.0"

Create a values-custom.yaml that overrides the defaults with your URLs and resource requests:

yaml

# Application URLs and resource limits
webapp:
  appOrigin: "https://trigger.example.com"
  loginOrigin: "https://trigger.example.com"
  apiOrigin: "https://trigger.example.com"
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 1000m
      memory: 2Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 2000m
      memory: 4Gi

supervisor:
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 200m
      memory: 512Mi
    limits:
      cpu: 1000m
      memory: 2Gi

Deploy with your custom values:

bash

helm upgrade -n trigger --install trigger \
  oci://ghcr.io/triggerdotdev/charts/trigger \
  --version "^4.5.0" \
  --create-namespace \
  -f values-custom.yaml

Set extra environment variables on any service:

yaml

webapp:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: EXTRA_ENV_VAR
      value: "extra-value"

Set extra annotations on any service:

yaml

webapp:
  podAnnotations:
    "my-annotation": "my-value"

External services

Disable each built-in datastore and point the chart at your own. Every service supports direct configuration or an existing Kubernetes secret; use existing secrets to keep credentials out of values.yaml and Helm releases.

PostgreSQL

Direct configuration:

yaml

postgres:
  deploy: false
  external:
    databaseUrl: "postgresql://user:password@host:5432/database?schema=public"
    directUrl: "" # Optional, defaults to databaseUrl

Using existing secrets (recommended):

yaml

postgres:
  deploy: false
  external:
    existingSecret: "postgres-credentials"
    # Optional: Use secretKeys to specify the key names in the secret
    # secretKeys:
    #   databaseUrlKey: "postgres-database-url" # default
    #   directUrlKey: "postgres-direct-url"     # default

Redis

Direct configuration:

yaml

redis:
  deploy: false
  external:
    host: "my-redis.example.com"
    port: 6379
    password: "my-password"
    tls:
      enabled: true

Using existing secrets (recommended):

yaml

redis:
  deploy: false
  external:
    host: "my-redis.example.com"
    port: 6379
    existingSecret: "redis-credentials"
    # existingSecretPasswordKey: "redis-password" # default (optional)
    tls:
      enabled: true

ClickHouse

Migration from the old Bitnami subchart to the official clickhouse/clickhouse-server image is automatic - a normal upgrade moves you across with no manual step. The one exception: if you pinned clickhouse.image to a Bitnami tag, switch it to an official clickhouse/clickhouse-server tag first, since Bitnami tags don't exist in the official repository.

<Note> Trigger.dev requires ClickHouse 25.8 or newer. The bundled ClickHouse is single-node — run ClickHouse externally for a clustered or replicated setup. </Note>

Direct configuration:

yaml

clickhouse:
  deploy: false
  external:
    host: "my-clickhouse.example.com"
    httpPort: 8123
    username: "my-username"
    password: "my-password"

<Note> An inline external `username`/`password` is percent-encoded into the connection URL for you, so store the **raw** value - special characters like `@ : / %` are handled automatically. (Credentials from `existingSecret` are injected at runtime and are unaffected.) </Note>

Using existing secrets (recommended):

yaml

clickhouse:
  deploy: false
  external:
    host: "my-clickhouse.example.com"
    httpPort: 8123
    username: "my-username"
    existingSecret: "clickhouse-credentials"
    # existingSecretKey: "clickhouse-password" # default (optional)

Object storage

Object storage holds deploy artifacts and large payloads. See the Docker object storage setup for conceptual information. Disable the bundled MinIO and point at any S3-compatible endpoint.

Direct configuration:

yaml

s3:
  deploy: false
  external:
    endpoint: "https://s3.amazonaws.com"
    accessKeyId: "my-access-key"
    secretAccessKey: "my-secret-key"

Using existing secrets (recommended):

yaml

s3:
  deploy: false
  external:
    endpoint: "https://s3.amazonaws.com"
    existingSecret: "s3-credentials"
    # Optional: override the key names in the secret
    # existingSecretAccessKeyIdKey: "access-key-id"         # default
    # existingSecretSecretAccessKeyKey: "secret-access-key" # default

PostgreSQL SSL with custom CA certificates

When connecting to PostgreSQL instances that require custom CA certificates (such as AWS RDS with SSL verification), mount the CA certificate as a volume and configure the webapp to use it:

yaml

postgres:
  deploy: false
  external:
    databaseUrl: "postgresql://user:[email protected]:5432/triggerdb?schema=public&sslmode=require"
    # Alternatively, use an existing secret
    existingSecret: "postgres-credentials"
    # secretKeys:
    #   databaseUrlKey: "postgres-database-url" # default
  connection:
    sslMode: "require"

# Webapp configuration with SSL CA certificate
webapp:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS
      value: "/etc/ssl/certs/postgres-ca.crt"

  extraVolumes:
    - name: postgres-ca-cert
      secret:
        secretName: postgres-ca-secret
        items:
          - key: ca.crt
            path: postgres-ca.crt

  extraVolumeMounts:
    - name: postgres-ca-cert
      mountPath: /etc/ssl/certs
      readOnly: true

Benefits:

No plaintext credentials in values.yaml or Helm releases
Complete DATABASE_URL stored securely in Kubernetes secrets
Compatible with secret management tools (External Secrets Operator, etc.)
Follows Kubernetes security best practices

Registry setup

Built deploy images are pushed to a registry. See the Docker registry setup for conceptual information. Configure an external registry in your values.yaml:

yaml

# Use external registry (recommended)
registry:
  deploy: false
  # Part of deployment image ref, for example: your-registry.example.com/your-company/proj_123:20250625.1.prod
  repositoryNamespace: "your-company"
  external:
    host: "your-registry.example.com:5000"
    auth:
      enabled: true
      username: "your-username"
      password: "your-password"

<Note> The internal registry (`registry.deploy: true`) is experimental and requires proper TLS setup and additional cluster configuration. Use an external registry for production. </Note>

DNS performance

For production clusters we recommend deploying NodeLocal DNSCache. DNS queries — especially to managed Postgres or Redis endpoints — can be very slow under Kubernetes' default resolver, and a node-local cache typically gives a large step change in latency and throughput across the cluster.

The default ndots: 5 setting also forces every cluster search domain to be tried before resolving hostnames with fewer dots (the case for most external database hosts). Lowering ndots to 1 on the webapp and supervisor pods avoids those extra round-trips.

Authentication

Authentication options are identical to the Docker-based installation. Configure the provider in your values.yaml:

GitHub OAuth:

yaml

webapp:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: AUTH_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID
      value: "your-github-client-id"
    - name: AUTH_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET
      value: "your-github-client-secret"

Email authentication (Resend):

yaml

webapp:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: EMAIL_TRANSPORT
      value: "resend"
    - name: FROM_EMAIL
      value: "[email protected]"
    - name: REPLY_TO_EMAIL
      value: "[email protected]"
    - name: RESEND_API_KEY
      value: "your-resend-api-key"

Restricting access:

yaml

webapp:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: WHITELISTED_EMAILS
      value: "^(user1@company\\.com|user2@company\\.com)$"

Worker token

The supervisor authenticates to the webapp with a worker token. The default bootstrap path generates one for you; supply your own token to manage workers separately.

Bootstrap (default): the webapp generates a worker token and makes it available to the supervisor via a shared volume.

yaml

webapp:
  bootstrap:
    enabled: true
    workerGroupName: "bootstrap"

Manual: to set up workers separately or use a custom token:

<Steps> <Step title="Read the worker token from the webapp logs"> ```bash kubectl logs deployment/trigger-webapp -n trigger | grep -A15 "Worker Token" ``` </Step> <Step title="Create a secret with the token"> ```bash kubectl create secret generic worker-token \ --from-literal=token=tr_wgt_your_token_here \ -n trigger ``` </Step> <Step title="Point the supervisor at the secret"> ```yaml supervisor: bootstrap: enabled: false workerToken: secret: name: "worker-token" key: "token" ``` </Step> </Steps>

With external datastores, secrets, registry, and authentication in place, you have a production install. If you only wanted to try Trigger.dev, the evaluation install gets you there in one command.

Operating your deployment

Upgrading

helm upgrade is safe to run as-is. Your generated secrets, data volumes, and the bundled ClickHouse are preserved and migrated automatically, so a normal upgrade needs no preparation. A few situations need one manual step first — expand any that apply to you.

<AccordionGroup> <Accordion title="You supply your own secret (secrets.existingSecret)"> With `secrets.existingSecret` set, the chart reads every key from your Secret and generates none, so any key the app needs must already be present there.

As of chart 4.5.6 the webapp deployment references `PROVIDER_SECRET` and `COORDINATOR_SECRET`, and the pre-upgrade check requires both, so an existing Secret must carry them. Add both before upgrading:

```bash
kubectl patch secret my-trigger-secrets -n trigger --type merge -p \
  "{\"stringData\":{\"PROVIDER_SECRET\":\"$(openssl rand -hex 16)\",\"COORDINATOR_SECRET\":\"$(openssl rand -hex 16)\"}}"
```

If a required key is missing, the upgrade stops before touching your running release and tells you which to add.

</Accordion> <Accordion title="Something outside the chart reads a datastore password"> The bundled datastore passwords live in the `trigger-datastore` Secret. If a maintenance job, a dashboard, or a secret sync reads one directly, point it there:

```bash
kubectl get secret trigger-datastore -n trigger \
  -o jsonpath='{.data.clickhouse-admin-password}' | base64 -d
```

The keys are `clickhouse-admin-password`, `postgres-password`, and `minio-root-user` / `minio-root-password`.

</Accordion> <Accordion title="You render manifests without cluster access (Argo CD, plain helm template)"> During an upgrade the chart reads the cluster to keep your data and to check your Secret. Renderers that run offline can't do that, so set these yourself:

- Point `clickhouse.persistence.existingClaim` at your ClickHouse data volume (`data-<release>-clickhouse-shard0-0`) and keep it set on future syncs, so ClickHouse reuses its data instead of starting on an empty volume.
- Confirm `PROVIDER_SECRET` and `COORDINATOR_SECRET` are already in your Secret before syncing.

</Accordion> </AccordionGroup>

Version locking

<Note> Trigger.dev 4.5.0 is the last version we officially support for running v3 (SDK v3) tasks. If you still have v3 tasks, pin to exactly 4.5.0 or [migrate to v4](/migrating-from-v3). 4.5.1 and later reject v3 triggers and deploys with an upgrade message. </Note>

Lock versions in two ways.

Helm chart version (recommended):

bash

# Pin to a specific version for production
helm upgrade -n trigger --install trigger \
  oci://ghcr.io/triggerdotdev/charts/trigger \
  --version "4.5.0"

# The app version will be different from the chart version
# This is the version of the Trigger.dev webapp and supervisor
# ..and should always match your Trigger.dev CLI version
helm show chart \
  oci://ghcr.io/triggerdotdev/charts/trigger \
  --version "4.5.0" | grep appVersion

Specific image tags:

yaml

webapp:
  image:
    tag: "v4.5.0"

supervisor:
  image:
    tag: "v4.5.0"

The chart version's appVersion field determines the default image tags. Newer image tags may be incompatible with older chart versions and vice versa.

Troubleshooting

Check logs:

bash

# Webapp logs
kubectl logs deployment/trigger-webapp -n trigger -f

# Supervisor logs
kubectl logs deployment/trigger-supervisor -n trigger -f

# All pods
kubectl logs -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=trigger -n trigger -f

Check pod status:

bash

kubectl get pods -n trigger
kubectl describe pod <pod-name> -n trigger

Start from scratch:

bash

# Delete the release
helm uninstall trigger -n trigger

# Delete persistent volumes (optional)
# WARNING: This will delete all your data!
kubectl delete pvc -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=trigger -n trigger

# Delete the namespace (optional)
kubectl delete namespace trigger

Common issues:

Magic links not working: Check webapp logs for email delivery errors
Deploy fails: Verify registry access and authentication
Pods stuck pending: Describe the pod and check the events
Worker token issues: Check webapp and supervisor logs for errors

See the Docker troubleshooting section for more information.

Task events

By default, task events (timeline, logs, spans) are stored in PostgreSQL. For production deployments we recommend storing them in ClickHouse instead, it scales to much higher volumes and avoids unbounded growth of the TaskEvent table.

ClickHouse is already deployed by the chart, so no extra services are required. To enable, set EVENT_REPOSITORY_DEFAULT_STORE on the webapp via extraEnvVars:

yaml

webapp:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: EVENT_REPOSITORY_DEFAULT_STORE
      value: "clickhouse_v2"

This only affects new runs; existing runs continue to read from wherever their events were originally stored.

Realtime streams

Realtime streams power AI-agent token streaming and run streams. They default to v2, backed by the bundled s2 deployment — s2-lite, the open-source, self-hostable S2 server. The chart deploys it with a persistent volume, so no extra services are required.

To fall back to the Redis-backed v1 streams, set the default version to v1:

yaml

s2:
  defaultStreamVersion: "v1"

To use a hosted S2 at s2.dev instead of the bundled s2-lite, disable the bundled deployment and point at your basin. Supply the access token via an existing secret:

yaml

s2:
  deploy: false
  skipAccessTokens: false
  external:
    endpoint: "https://your-basin.b.aws.s2.dev/v1"
    existingSecret: "s2-credentials"
    existingSecretAccessTokenKey: "access-token"
  basin: "your-basin"

To disable realtime streams v2 entirely and use v1, set s2.deploy: false with no external endpoint. See helm show values for all s2 options.

CLI usage

See the Docker CLI usage section, the commands are identical regardless of deployment method.

CI / GitHub Actions

When running the CLI in a CI environment, your login profiles won't be available. Instead, use the TRIGGER_API_URL and TRIGGER_ACCESS_TOKEN environment variables to point at your self-hosted instance and authenticate.

For more detailed instructions, see the GitHub Actions guide.

Telemetry

By default, the Trigger.dev webapp sends telemetry data to our servers. This data is used to improve the product and is not shared with third parties. To disable telemetry, set in your values.yaml:

yaml

telemetry:
  enabled: false