---
title: Deploy to Kubernetes
keywords: kubernetes, pods, deployments, kubernetes services
description: Learn how to describe and deploy a simple application on Kubernetes.
aliases:
  - /get-started/kube-deploy/
  - /guides/deployment-orchestration/kube-deploy/
summary: |
  Learn how to deploy and orchestrate Docker containers using Kubernetes.
tags: [deploy]
params:
  time: 10 minutes
---

## Prerequisites

- Download and install Docker Desktop as described in [Get Docker](/get-started/get-docker.md).
- Work through containerizing an application in [Part 2](02_our_app.md).
- Make sure that Kubernetes is turned on in Docker Desktop:
  If Kubernetes isn't running, follow the instructions in [Orchestration](orchestration.md) to finish setting it up.

## Introduction

Now that you've demonstrated that the individual components of your application run as stand-alone containers, it's time to arrange for them to be managed by an orchestrator like Kubernetes. Kubernetes provides many tools for scaling, networking, securing and maintaining your containerized applications, above and beyond the abilities of containers themselves.

In order to validate that your containerized application works well on Kubernetes, you'll use Docker Desktop's built in Kubernetes environment right on your development machine to deploy your application, before handing it off to run on a full Kubernetes cluster in production. The Kubernetes environment created by Docker Desktop is _fully featured_, meaning it has all the Kubernetes features your app will enjoy on a real cluster, accessible from the convenience of your development machine.

## Describing apps using Kubernetes YAML

All containers in Kubernetes are scheduled as pods, which are groups of co-located containers that share some resources. Furthermore, in a realistic application you almost never create individual pods. Instead, most of your workloads are scheduled as deployments, which are scalable groups of pods maintained automatically by Kubernetes. Lastly, all Kubernetes objects can and should be described in manifests called Kubernetes YAML files. These YAML files describe all the components and configurations of your Kubernetes app, and can be used to create and destroy your app in any Kubernetes environment.

You already wrote a basic Kubernetes YAML file in the Orchestration overview part of this tutorial. Now, you can write a slightly more sophisticated YAML file to run and manage your Todo app, the container `getting-started` image created in [Part 2](02_our_app.md) of the Quickstart tutorial. Place the following in a file called `bb.yaml`:

```yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: bb-demo
  namespace: default
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      bb: web
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        bb: web
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: bb-site
          image: getting-started
          imagePullPolicy: Never
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: bb-entrypoint
  namespace: default
spec:
  type: NodePort
  selector:
    bb: web
  ports:
    - port: 3000
      targetPort: 3000
      nodePort: 30001
```

In this Kubernetes YAML file, there are two objects, separated by the `---`:

- A `Deployment`, describing a scalable group of identical pods. In this case, you'll get just one `replica`, or copy of your pod, and that pod (which is described under the `template:` key) has just one container in it, based off of your `getting-started` image from the previous step in this tutorial.