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What is Ctrlplane?

Ctrlplane is an open-source deployment orchestration platform that helps you manage multi-stage deployment pipelines across diverse infrastructure environments. Whether you’re deploying to Kubernetes clusters, cloud functions, VMs, or custom infrastructure, Ctrlplane provides a unified control plane for orchestrating your deployments. Think of Ctrlplane as the orchestration layer that sits between your CI/CD system and your deployment targets, managing the complexity of progressive delivery, approval workflows, and environment promotion.

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Key Features

  • Multi-platform deployments - Deploy to Kubernetes, cloud functions, VMs, or any custom infrastructure
  • Progressive delivery - Canary deployments, blue-green deployments, and phased rollouts
  • Policy-driven workflows - Define approval gates, environment progression rules, and gradual rollouts
  • CI/CD integration - Works with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or any CI system via REST API
  • Flexible job agents - Execute deployments using Kubernetes jobs, GitHub Actions workflows, ArgoCD, or custom agents
  • Resource targeting - Use powerful selectors to dynamically target deployment destinations
  • Deployment tracing - Full visibility into execution with detailed traces

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How Ctrlplane Works

At a high level, Ctrlplane orchestrates deployments through these steps: 
1. Build Phase (Your CI)
   └─> CI builds artifact
   └─> CI creates deployment version in Ctrlplane

2. Planning Phase (Ctrlplane)
   └─> Evaluates policies (approvals, progression, etc.)
   └─> Determines which resources need the new version

3. Job Creation (Ctrlplane)
   └─> Creates release + job for each target
   └─> (Deployment × Environment × Resource)

4. Execution Phase (Job Agents)
   └─> Agents poll for work
   └─> Execute deployments
   └─> Report status back

5. Observability (Optional)
   └─> Traces capture detailed execution steps

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Comparison to Other Tools

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When to Use Ctrlplane

Ctrlplane is ideal when you need:
  • Multi-environment deployments - Managing dev, staging, and production environments
  • Approval workflows - Requiring manual gates before production
  • Progressive delivery - Gradual rollouts and canary deployments
  • Multi-platform deployments - Deploying to Kubernetes AND cloud functions AND VMs
  • Deployment orchestration - Coordinating complex deployment workflows
  • Policy enforcement - Ensuring deployment best practices are followed

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Core Entities

Ctrlplane models deployments through these key entities:
  • System - Logical grouping of related deployments (e.g., “E-commerce Platform”)
  • Resource - A deployment target (e.g., a Kubernetes cluster, a VM, a function)
  • Environment - A logical environment (dev, staging, prod) that groups resources
  • Deployment - A service or application to deploy (e.g., “API Service”)
  • Deployment Version - A specific version/build of a deployment (e.g., “v1.2.3”)
  • Release Target - The combination of (Deployment × Environment × Resource)
  • Release - An intended deployment of a version to a release target
  • Job - The actual deployment task executed by a job agent
  • Policy - Rules governing deployments (approvals, progression, etc.)

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Next Steps

Ready to get started? Continue with:
  • Core Concepts - Deep dive into Ctrlplane’s entities and their relationships
  • Quickstart - Set up your first deployment in 10 minutes
  • Installation - Self-host Ctrlplane or use the cloud offering