What is ark-setup-cluster?

A setup workflow for installing the Ark platform in Kubernetes, a system for running applications in managed containers, using an existing or separate local cluster.

It is for installing, configuring, troubleshooting, and preparing Ark environments for end-to-end testing.

It helps deploy Ark safely while checking the current cluster first and avoiding accidental changes to existing work.

How mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark/main/.claude/skills/ark-setup-cluster/SKILL.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark/ark-setup-cluster/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark/ark-setup-cluster)

Your own site

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Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark/ark-setup-cluster"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark/ark-setup-cluster.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 54 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,153 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan C 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits

NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026

SkillSpector: 4 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

high Privilege Escalation · line 63
Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.

Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
high Privilege Escalation · line 67
Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.

Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
high Privilege Escalation · line 71
Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.

Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
high Privilege Escalation · line 67
Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.

Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.

How audits are shown

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00054	$0.01153
Opus 5.5	$0.00022	$0.00461
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00011	$0.00231
Haiku 4.5	$0.00005	$0.00115

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 2e1297e99e3f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

ark-setup-cluster scanned grade C with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Reaches for credential fileshighPrivilege escalation

SSH keys, cloud credentials, git-credentials, .npmrc, /etc/shadow: reading these is how a config file becomes a credential leak.

kind get kubeconfig --name <cluster-name> --internal | sed "s/<cluster-name>-control-plane/$CONTROL_PLANE_IP/g" > ~/.kube/config

.claude/skills/ark-setup-cluster/SKILL.md · 146 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 146 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Ark Setup Cluster

Set up and install the Ark platform using ark-cli. Supports two modes:

Default: Deploy Ark to an existing cluster
Isolated e2e: Create a dedicated Kind cluster for testing without affecting existing clusters

When to use this skill

User wants to install or set up Ark
Build manager needs an isolated cluster for e2e testing
User needs to deploy Ark to their local cluster
User needs to troubleshoot Ark installation issues

Prerequisites

Docker - Required for Kind cluster creation
kubectl - Kubernetes CLI
Helm - For installing Ark components
Node.js - For building the ark-cli tool
Kind - For creating local clusters (which kind)

Step 0: Check existing cluster state

CRITICAL: Always check before creating or modifying clusters.

kubectl cluster-info 2>/dev/null
kubectl get pods -n default 2>/dev/null | head -10
kind get clusters 2>/dev/null

If a cluster is already running

Never silently destroy an existing cluster. It may have user data, demos, or in-progress work. Present options:

Option A: Reuse existing cluster — deploy Ark into it. Fastest, but overwrites current Ark state.
Option B: Create isolated cluster (recommended for e2e testing) — kind create cluster --name ark-e2e-test. Fully isolated, preserves existing cluster.
Option C: Replace existing cluster — delete and recreate. Only if user explicitly confirms.

Wait for user to choose, or if called by the build manager for e2e testing, default to Option B.

Step 1: Create cluster

Default mode (existing cluster or new ark-cluster)

kind create cluster --name ark-cluster

Isolated e2e testing mode

kind create cluster --name ark-e2e-test
kubectl config use-context kind-ark-e2e-test

Configure kubeconfig (if running inside Docker/DinD)

CONTROL_PLANE_IP=$(docker inspect -f '{{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' <cluster-name>-control-plane)
kind get kubeconfig --name <cluster-name> --internal | sed "s/<cluster-name>-control-plane/$CONTROL_PLANE_IP/g" > ~/.kube/config
kubectl cluster-info

Read the full file on GitHub · 146 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

1mo ago Changed · +3 lines 2e1297e99e3f
2mo ago First seen · 143 lines · 54 tokens per session scan C d4769315d870

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ark-setup-cluster is a skill published in the GitHub repository mckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark (434 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 1,153 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (reaches for credential files). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

Cloud Containers DevOps and cloud E2E testing Testing agentic-ai ai kubernetes productid-20863

ark-setup-cluster next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
ark-setup-clustermckinsey/agents-at-scale-ark	Skill	434	yesterday	Apache-2.0	C	54	Claude Code
container-manager-kubernetes-operationsKnuckles-Team/container-manager-mcp	Skill	6	yesterday	MIT	A	189	Claude Code, Codex
kubernetes-mesh-provisionerKnuckles-Team/container-manager-mcp	Skill	6	yesterday	MIT	C	60	Claude Code, Codex
k8s-opsjingyanjiang/k8s-mcp	Skill	3	5mo ago	MIT	A	77	Claude Code
aiq-deployNVIDIA/skills	Skill	3.9k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	27	Claude Code
cdf-orchestration-setupNVIDIA/skills	Skill	3.9k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	105	Codex
dynamo-recipe-runnerNVIDIA/skills	Skill	3.9k	yesterday	Apache-2.0	A	49	Claude Code, Codex

agents-at-scale-ark: Skill for Claude Code