kind v0.33.0-alpha.apple.1 — Apple container provider

Experimental kind build with a node provider for apple/container, which runs each kind node as a lightweight VM on macOS.

Requirements

• macOS 26+ on Apple silicon
• Apple container CLI 1.0+ (container system start must be running)

Quick start

curl -Lo ./kind https://github.com/reoring/kind/releases/download/v0.33.0-alpha.apple.1/kind-darwin-arm64
chmod +x ./kind
KIND_EXPERIMENTAL_PROVIDER=container ./kind create cluster

Multi-node / HA clusters

Set up the runtime's local DNS domain first so clusters survive node restarts (required for HA):

sudo container system dns create kind
cat >> ~/.config/container/config.toml <<TOML
[dns]
domain = "kind"
TOML
container system stop && container system start

See the provider documentation for details, image loading without docker, and known limitations.

Verified

• Single-node and multi-node cluster create/use/delete (kindest/node v1.36.1)
• Cluster survival across node VM restarts (with the DNS domain configured)
• HA: 3 control-planes behind the envoy load balancer, API failover on control-plane stop
• kind export logs, kind load image-archive

Known limitations

• kind load docker-image / kind build node-image need the docker CLI (use container image save --platform linux/arm64 + kind load image-archive)
• A restarted HA control-plane needs a manual etcd repair (documented)
• Mount propagation / SELinux options are ignored; SCTP port mappings unsupported