Infisical on GKE Autopilot

Infisical is an open-source, end-to-end encrypted secrets management platform: teams and CI/CD pipelines store, inject, and rotate application secrets from a single platform, using client SDKs, a CLI, or the web UI. This module deploys Infisical on GKE Autopilot on top of the App_GKE foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Infisical uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics that are common to every GKE application — Workload Identity, ingress, autoscaling, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_GKE foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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1. Overview

Infisical runs as a Node.js pod (a custom-built image wrapping the official infisical/infisical image) as a stateless Deployment. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	GKE Autopilot	Custom-built Node.js pods, 2 vCPU / 2Gi by default, horizontally autoscaled
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — Infisical does not support MySQL or other engines
Cache & rate-limiting	Redis (optional, on by default)	NFS-hosted Redis by default, or an authenticated external Redis via redis_auth
Secrets	Secret Manager	Auto-generated ENCRYPTION_KEY, AUTH_SECRET, ADMIN_PASSWORD; database password
Ingress	Cloud Load Balancing	External LoadBalancer Service by default, with a reserved static IP

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is mandatory. database_type defaults to POSTGRES_15 and is the only value Infisical supports.
• The container image is custom-built, not the upstream image. Infisical_Common builds FROM infisical/infisical:${INFISICAL_VERSION} with a wrapper entrypoint.sh that assembles the database connection string at container start. application_version = "latest" maps to a pinned known-good release (v0.162.10) as the build arg.
• Redis defaults on, and its wiring is mutually exclusive by construction. When redis_auth is empty (the default), the Foundation's own NFS-hosted Redis plain-env injection supplies REDIS_HOST/REDIS_PORT. When redis_auth is set, Infisical_Common instead creates and injects its own REDIS_URL secret.
• site_url does not auto-compute on GKE. Unlike the Cloud Run variant, this module passes site_url straight through with no predicted-URL computation. Leaving it empty means SITE_URL — and the admin-bootstrap job's target — falls back to http://localhost:8080, which is not reachable from the bootstrap job's own pod. See §3.
• The health probes target HTTP /api/status, unlike the Cloud Run variant's TCP-only startup probe. Allow a generous initial_delay_seconds/ failure_threshold on first boot — that endpoint only returns 2xx once the database (and Redis, if enabled) connections are healthy.
• No object storage is mounted. A generic data GCS bucket is provisioned via the Foundation's storage_buckets variable, but gcs_volumes is empty by default — Infisical keeps all persistent state in PostgreSQL.
• postgres_extensions is vestigial for this app. The variable defaults to ["vector", "uuid-ossp"] (a leftover from the module's origin template) but is never forwarded to App_GKE — Infisical_Common hardcodes enable_postgres_extensions = false. Infisical does not use pgvector.
• The admin account is bootstrapped headlessly, not via the web UI. An admin-bootstrap init job runs the infisical CLI's bootstrap command against the running server. On GKE the job's pod is scheduled immediately and retries until the server answers — see §3.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume you have run gcloud container clusters get-credentials <cluster> --region <region> --project <project> and that PROJECT, REGION, and NAMESPACE are set. The namespace and other identifiers are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. GKE Autopilot — the Infisical workload

Infisical pods are scheduled on Autopilot, which bills for the CPU/memory the pods actually request. Horizontal Pod Autoscaling sizes the deployment between the minimum and maximum replica counts.

• Console: Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → select the Infisical workload for pods, revisions, and events. Kubernetes Engine → Services & Ingress shows the external IP.
• CLI:

  kubectl get pods,svc,hpa -n "$NAMESPACE"
  kubectl logs -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> --tail=100
  kubectl describe hpa -n "$NAMESPACE"          # current vs target utilisation

See App_GKE for how Autopilot, scaling, and the workload type are managed.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

Infisical stores all application data (secrets, projects, organizations, users, audit logs) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. Pods reach it privately through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar over loopback (enable_cloudsql_volume = true by default). On first deploy, the db-init initialization job creates the application database and role.

• Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --database=<db-name> --project "$PROJECT"

The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_GKE for the connection model, automated backups, and password rotation.

C. Redis (cache & rate-limiting)

Redis is enabled by default (enable_redis = true). When redis_host is left empty, the NFS server VM's IP is used as the default Redis host. When redis_auth is set, Infisical_Common provisions its own REDIS_URL Secret Manager secret instead of relying on the Foundation's plain-env injection.

• CLI:

  redis-cli -h <redis-host> ping
  # Confirm which Redis path is active in the running pod:
  kubectl exec -n "$NAMESPACE" deploy/<service-name> -- env | grep -i redis

D. Secret Manager

Three cryptographic secrets are generated automatically and stored in Secret Manager: ENCRYPTION_KEY (encrypts every secret Infisical stores), AUTH_SECRET (signs JWT session tokens), and ADMIN_PASSWORD (consumed only by the admin-bootstrap job, never injected into the running pod). A REDIS_URL secret is created conditionally. The database password is managed separately by the foundation.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~infisical"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"

See App_GKE for the Secret Store CSI integration and rotation.

E. Networking & ingress

By default the workload is exposed through an external Cloud Load Balancing IP (service_type = LoadBalancer, reserve_static_ip = true), so the address survives redeploys. A custom domain with a Google-managed certificate can be enabled.

• Console: Network services → Load balancing; VPC network → IP addresses.
• CLI:

  kubectl get svc -n "$NAMESPACE"
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_GKE for custom domains, Cloud CDN, and static IP details.

F. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Pod stdout/stderr flow to Cloud Logging; GKE and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring. Optional uptime checks and alert policies are available.

• CLI:

  gcloud logging read 'resource.type="k8s_container" AND resource.labels.namespace_name="'"$NAMESPACE"'"' \
    --project "$PROJECT" --limit 50

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3. Infisical Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. The db-init initialization job runs postgres:15-alpine, connects through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy, and idempotently creates the application role and database. execute_on_apply = true, so this runs on every apply and is safe to re-run.
• The database connection string is assembled at container start. Infisical accepts a single DB_CONNECTION_URI; entrypoint.sh URL-encodes DB_PASSWORD and builds the URI from the discrete DB_HOST/DB_PORT/DB_USER/DB_PASSWORD/ DB_NAME values the Foundation injects, branching sslmode on DB_HOST's shape (the GKE Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar's 127.0.0.1 loopback → disable).
• The admin account is bootstrapped headlessly, and retries until the server is reachable. The admin-bootstrap init job (image infisical/cli:latest, depends on db-init) runs infisical bootstrap --ignore-if-bootstrapped against INFISICAL_API_URL (derived from site_url). On GKE, execute_on_apply = false only gates Terraform's wait for the job — the job's pod is still scheduled and runs immediately, retrying up to 20 times (15s apart). This only works if site_url resolves to the actual reachable service. If site_url is left empty, INFISICAL_API_URL defaults to http://localhost:8080 — unreachable from the job's own pod — and every attempt fails. Set site_url to the external LoadBalancer IP or custom domain (known after the Service has an external IP) before or shortly after the first apply, then re-apply so the job can succeed:

  kubectl get svc <service-name> -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}'
  # set site_url = "https://<that-ip-or-domain>" and re-apply

• The admin password lives only in Secret Manager. Retrieve the bootstrapped credential with:

  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<prefix>-infisical-admin-password --project "$PROJECT"

• Health endpoint. /api/status returns HTTP 200 with a JSON body once Infisical, its database connection, and (if enabled) Redis are all healthy. The startup and liveness probes target this path directly on GKE (unlike the Cloud Run variant's TCP-only probe) — allow the default generous delay/threshold on first boot while migrations run.
• Redis is optional but on by default. Set enable_redis = false only if no caching/rate-limiting backend is desired.

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4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Infisical are listed; every other input is inherited from App_GKE with its standard behaviour and defaults.

Group 1 — Project & Identity

Variable	Default	Description
project_id	(required)	Target Google Cloud project.
region	us-central1	Region for the workload and regional resources.

Group 2 — Deployment Environment

Variable	Default	Description
tenant_deployment_id	demo	Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment.
support_users	[]	Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts.
resource_labels	{}	Labels applied to all resources.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	infisical	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
application_display_name	Infisical	Human-readable name shown in the Console.
application_version	latest	Image version tag. "latest" maps to a pinned build arg (v0.162.10).
site_url	""	Public URL for SITE_URL and the admin-bootstrap CLI target. Passed through unchanged — no automatic URL prediction on GKE. See §3.
admin_email	admin@techequity.cloud	Email for the bootstrapped first super-admin account.
admin_organization	Default Organization	Organization name created for the bootstrapped account.
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
cpu_limit	2000m	CPU per pod.
memory_limit	2Gi	Memory per pod.
container_port	8080	Port Infisical listens on.
min_instance_count	0	Minimum replicas (HPA minReplicas).
max_instance_count	3	Maximum replicas (HPA maxReplicas).
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the built image into Artifact Registry.

Group 5 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Extra non-secret settings. Core Infisical vars are set automatically.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name.
smtp_host / smtp_port / smtp_user / smtp_password / smtp_secure_enabled / mail_from	various	Declared but not forwarded to Infisical_Common — inert, no effect on the deployment.

Group 6 — GKE Backend Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
gke_cluster_name	""	Leave empty for auto-discovery.
namespace_name	""	Leave empty to auto-generate.
workload_type	Deployment	Fixed to Deployment at the infisical.tf call site — Infisical keeps no state that survives a pod restart.
service_type	LoadBalancer	External access by default.
session_affinity	ClientIP	Foundation default; Infisical's own auth is JWT-based, so this is not a hard requirement.

Group 10 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /api/status	Forwarded to Infisical_Common. Returns 200 once DB (and Redis, if enabled) connections are healthy.
liveness_probe	HTTP /api/status, 60s initial delay	Forwarded to Infisical_Common.
uptime_check_config	{ enabled=false, path="/" }	Optional Cloud Monitoring uptime check — consider pointing path at /api/status.

Group 13 — Filesystem (NFS)

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	Only relevant here as the default source of the Redis host IP when redis_host is empty.

Group 14 — Cloud Storage

Variable	Default	Description
storage_buckets	[{ name_suffix = "data" }]	Foundation-level default bucket — provisioned but never mounted.
gcs_volumes	[]	Empty by default and unused by Infisical.

Group 15 — Redis Cache

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	true	Enable Redis for caching and rate-limiting.
redis_host	""	Leave blank to default to the NFS server IP.
redis_port	6379	Redis port.
redis_auth	"" (sensitive)	When set, switches Infisical to Infisical_Common's own REDIS_URL secret.
cubejs_api_url / hub_api_url	localhost URLs	Declared but not forwarded to Infisical_Common — inert, no effect.

Group 16 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Fixed — Infisical requires PostgreSQL.
db_name	infisical	PostgreSQL database name. Do not change after initial deployment.
db_user	infisical	Application database user. Password auto-generated in Secret Manager.
postgres_extensions / enable_postgres_extensions	["vector","uuid-ossp"] / true	Vestigial — not forwarded to App_GKE. Infisical_Common hardcodes enable_postgres_extensions = false. Infisical does not use pgvector.

Group 19 — Custom Domain, Static IP & Networking

Variable	Default	Description
enable_custom_domain	true	Provision a Gateway for custom hostnames + SSL.
reserve_static_ip	true	Stable external IP across redeploys — important since site_url must reference a durable address for admin-bootstrap and OAuth/email links.

All remaining groups (Backup & Maintenance, CI/CD, Custom SQL, IAP, Cloud Armor, StatefulSet, Reliability Policies, VPC Service Controls) behave exactly as documented in App_GKE.

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5. Outputs

These values are returned on a successful deployment and are the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Kubernetes Service name.
namespace	Namespace the workload runs in.
service_cluster_ip / service_external_ip	In-cluster ClusterIP / external LoadBalancer IP.
service_url	URL to reach Infisical.
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Application database name / user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint (127.0.0.1 via the Auth Proxy) / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets (the unused data bucket).
network_name	VPC network name.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled	Whether monitoring is configured.
initialization_jobs	Names of the db-init and admin-bootstrap jobs.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / artifact_registry_repository	CI/CD status and registry.
kubernetes_ready	Whether the cluster/workload is ready.
vpc_sc_enabled / audit_logging_enabled	Security posture.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Inherited plan-time validation. This module passes its configuration through the App_GKE foundation engine, which validates values and combinations at plan time. Invalid configuration fails the plan with a clear, named error before any resource is created.

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
ENCRYPTION_KEY (auto-generated)	Never rotate after first boot	Critical	Rotating it makes every previously stored secret permanently undecryptable.
AUTH_SECRET (auto-generated)	Only rotate in a maintenance window	Critical	Rotating it invalidates all active user sessions.
db_name / db_user	Set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys all data.
enable_redis	Forward var.enable_redis unconditionally to App_GKE	Critical	Hardcoding it to false at the Foundation call leaves REDIS_URL completely unset in the common no-auth case — Infisical crashes at boot.
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Critical	MySQL is not supported; any non-Postgres value breaks the connection entirely.
site_url	Set after first deploy, once the LoadBalancer IP/domain is known	High	Left empty, admin-bootstrap targets an unreachable localhost:8080 inside its own pod and every attempt fails — no admin account is ever created.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	High	The Auth Proxy sidecar is required for PostgreSQL connectivity on GKE.
postgres_extensions / enable_postgres_extensions	N/A	Low	Declared but not forwarded to App_GKE — setting them has no effect; Infisical does not need pgvector.
smtp_host / smtp_user / smtp_password / mail_from / cubejs_api_url / hub_api_url	N/A	Low	Declared for convention-mirroring parity but never forwarded to Infisical_Common — setting them has no effect.
reserve_static_ip	true (default)	Medium	Without a stable IP, service_url/site_url can reference a stale address across redeploys.
memory_limit	2Gi (default) or higher	Medium	Lower values risk OOM under concurrent secret-fetch load.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — IAM and Workload Identity, autoscaling, ingress and certificates, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_GKE. Infisical-specific application configuration shared with the Cloud Run variant is described in Infisical_Common.