Install clusterawsadm with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• clusterawsadm

Project history

Cluster API Provider AWS is the AWS infrastructure provider for Kubernetes Cluster API. Its docs describe CAPA as Kubernetes-native declarative infrastructure for AWS and list clusterawsadm as the CLI tool that provides bootstrapping, AMI, EKS, and controller helpers.

clusterawsadm exists because CAPA needs AWS prerequisites before `clusterctl init --infrastructure aws`: the command can print or create IAM policies, roles, and instance profiles through CloudFormation and can encode credentials for clusterctl.

Adoption history

The official CAPA documentation says clusterawsadm binaries are attached to each CAPA release and that it can be installed with Homebrew on macOS and Linux.

Its adoption is tied to Cluster API Provider AWS operators: users run it before or around clusterctl initialization to prepare AWS accounts for declarative Kubernetes cluster lifecycle management.

How it is used

Common usage includes `clusterawsadm bootstrap iam create-cloudformation-stack` to create IAM prerequisites and `clusterawsadm bootstrap credentials encode-as-profile` to provide encoded AWS credentials for `clusterctl init --infrastructure aws`.

The command reference also exposes AMI, bootstrap, controller, EKS, garbage-collection, resource, and version subcommands.

Why package nerds care

clusterawsadm is a good package-manager example of a narrowly scoped admin companion binary: it is not the core controller, but packagers ship it because real CAPA installs need a local CLI for account bootstrapping and release-aligned assets.

Timeline

• 2019: Cluster API Provider AWS GitHub releases include v0.1.x and v0.3.x releases.
• 2021: CAPA v1.0.0 was published shortly after Cluster API v1.0.0.
• 2022: CAPA v2.0.0 was published.
• 2026: The generated command reference lists clusterawsadm docs generated by Cobra on June 29, 2026.

Related projects

• Cluster API Provider AWS is the parent project that ships clusterawsadm.
• Cluster API and clusterctl are the core upstream projects in the workflow.
• kops and kubicorn are named in the CAPA introduction as previous cluster-manager projects whose lessons informed Cluster API-style infrastructure.

Sources

• https://cluster-api-aws.sigs.k8s.io/introduction
• https://cluster-api-aws.sigs.k8s.io/clusterawsadm/clusterawsadm.html
• https://cluster-api-aws.sigs.k8s.io/topics/using-clusterawsadm-to-fulfill-prerequisites
• https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api-provider-aws/releases