Deploy a Kubernetes Cluster on AWS in Under 20 Minutes with SeaGit
By Muhammad Soliman
Spinning up a production-grade Kubernetes cluster on AWS usually means
juggling VPCs, IAM roles, node groups, and a wall of Terraform. With SeaGit
you can go from zero to a running EKS cluster in under 20 minutes — no prior
Kubernetes expertise required. Here's the full walkthrough.
## What you'll need
- A SeaGit account (free tier works fine)
- An AWS account with permissions to create IAM roles
- About 20 minutes
## Step 1 — Connect your AWS provider (3 min)
In the SeaGit dashboard, go to Providers and click "Connect AWS". SeaGit walks
you through creating a scoped IAM role — copy the generated trust policy into
the AWS console, paste the role ARN back, and you're connected. No long-lived
access keys to manage.
## Step 2 — Create a network (2 min)
Head to Networks and click "New VPC". Pick a region and a CIDR range (the
default 10.0.0.0/16 is fine for most teams). SeaGit provisions the VPC,
public/private subnets across availability zones, and NAT gateways for you.
## Step 3 — Provision the cluster (10 min)
Open Clusters and click "New Cluster":
- Choose the VPC you just created
- Select a Kubernetes version (latest stable is pre-selected)
- Pick a node group instance type — t3.medium is a good starting point
- Set min/max nodes for autoscaling (try 2–4)
Hit Create. SeaGit provisions the EKS control plane, node groups, and core
add-ons (NGINX ingress, the ALB controller, and ArgoCD) automatically. This is
the longest step — grab a coffee while AWS spins up the control plane.
## Step 4 — Deploy your first app (3 min)
Once the cluster shows "Ready", create an Environment (say, "production"), then
add an Application. Point it at your container image, set a port, and deploy.
SeaGit assigns a DNS subdomain, wires up ingress, and rolls out your workload
with zero-downtime defaults.
## That's it
You now have a real EKS cluster — autoscaling nodes, ingress, GitOps delivery,
and your first app live — in under 20 minutes. Everything is provisioned with
infrastructure-as-code under the hood, so it's reproducible and auditable, but
you never had to write a line of Terraform.
Push a commit to your connected repo and watch the CI/CD pipeline deploy an
ephemeral preview environment automatically. Welcome to Kubernetes without the
headache.