Deploy the Example Guestbook Application

Learn how to deploy a Guestbook demo application using Argo CD CLI or UI to enhance your understanding of Argo CD operations.
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With Argo CD installed and running, you can create an application to deepen your understanding of its operations. This page provides the necessary commands with minimal explanation, as detailed information is available in the Argo CD documentation. Refer to the Create An Application From A Git Repository  for more detailed instructions.

Create the Application

SSH into the Argo CD container c2d-argocd:

c2
vagrant ssh c2d-argocd

Create the application using the Argo CD CLI:

kubens argocd
argocd login argocd.c2platform.org --username admin --password supersecret
argocd app create guestbook --repo https://github.com/argoproj/argocd-example-apps.git \
  --path guestbook --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc --dest-namespace default

View Status and Sync (Deploy)

To view the application status, use:

argocd app get guestbook
Show me
[vagrant@c2d-argocd ~ (⎈|microk8s:argocd)]$ argocd app get guestbook
Name:               argocd/guestbook
Project:            default
Server:             https://kubernetes.default.svc
Namespace:          default
URL:                https://argocd.c2platform.org/applications/guestbook
Source:
- Repo:             https://github.com/argoproj/argocd-example-apps.git
  Target:
  Path:             guestbook
SyncWindow:         Sync Allowed
Sync Policy:        Manual
Sync Status:        OutOfSync from  (4773b9f)
Health Status:      Missing

GROUP  KIND        NAMESPACE  NAME          STATUS     HEALTH   HOOK  MESSAGE
       Service     default    guestbook-ui  OutOfSync  Missing
apps   Deployment  default    guestbook-ui  OutOfSync  Missing
[vagrant@c2d-argocd ~ (⎈|microk8s:argocd)]$

Sync (deploy) the application using:

argocd app sync guestbook
Show me
[vagrant@c2d-argocd ~ (⎈|microk8s:argocd)]$ argocd app sync guestbook
TIMESTAMP                  GROUP        KIND   NAMESPACE                  NAME    STATUS    HEALTH        HOOK  MESSAGE
2025-01-22T07:03:49+00:00            Service     default          guestbook-ui  OutOfSync  Missing
2025-01-22T07:03:49+00:00   apps  Deployment     default          guestbook-ui  OutOfSync  Missing
2025-01-22T07:03:49+00:00            Service     default          guestbook-ui    Synced  Healthy

Name:               argocd/guestbook
Project:            default
Server:             https://kubernetes.default.svc
Namespace:          default
URL:                https://argocd.c2platform.org/applications/guestbook
Source:
- Repo:             https://github.com/argoproj/argocd-example-apps.git
  Target:
  Path:             guestbook
SyncWindow:         Sync Allowed
Sync Policy:        Manual
Sync Status:        Synced to  (4773b9f)
Health Status:      Progressing

Operation:          Sync
Sync Revision:      4773b9f1f8fd425f84174c338012771c4e9a989c
Phase:              Succeeded
Start:              2025-01-22 07:03:49 +0000 UTC
Finished:           2025-01-22 07:03:49 +0000 UTC
Duration:           0s
Message:            successfully synced (all tasks run)

GROUP  KIND        NAMESPACE  NAME          STATUS  HEALTH       HOOK  MESSAGE
       Service     default    guestbook-ui  Synced  Healthy            service/guestbook-ui created
apps   Deployment  default    guestbook-ui  Synced  Progressing        deployment.apps/guestbook-ui created

Verify

Curl test

To verify the application is working, use curl for a simple test:

kubens default
export GUESTBOOK_CLUSTER_IP="$(kubectl get svc guestbook-ui | grep 'guestbook-ui' | awk '{ print $3}')"
curl -s $GUESTBOOK_CLUSTER_IP | grep h2

This should return the text “Fancy Guestbook”.

Argo CD UI

Navigate to the Argo CD UI https://argocd.c2platform.org and log in using admin with password supersecret.

You should see the application created and synced, similar to the screenshot below.

Create the Application using the UI

If you want to deploy the demo application using the Argo CD UI, you can reset your environment, assuming you created the v0 snapshot1, by restoring the snapshot:

vagrant snapshot restore c2d-argocd v0

SSH into c2d-argocd and utilize k9s2 to ensure all pods are running:

vagrant ssh c2d-argocd
k9s --all-namespaces

Refer to Creating Apps Via UI  for more information on how to utilize the Argo CD UI to perform the same deployment.

Next Step

Now you are ready to proceed to more advanced deployment capabilities, such as canary deployments with Perform Canary Deployments using Argo Rollouts .

Additional Information

  1. The creation of this snapshot was part of the first part of this tutorial, Install and Manage Argo CD with Ansible . ↩︎

  2. Kubernetes command-line tools like k9s were installed by Ansible as part of the first part of this tutorial, Install and Manage Argo CD with Ansible . ↩︎


Last modified August 27, 2025: phx dev save C2-633 (3b38443)