operator-framework/operator-lifecycle-manager

Operator Lifecycle Manager is a Kubernetes operator that extends Kubernetes with a declarative system for installing, managing, and upgrading Operators and their dependencies across a cluster.

OLM solves the problem of managing Operators as first-class cluster extensions with the same sophistication applied to Kubernetes itself. It provides catalogs from which Operators can be discovered and installed, handles over-the-air updates through channels defined by maintainers, and enforces a dependency model so Operators can declare requirements on the platform or other Operators. The tool prevents API conflicts by requiring Operators to claim ownership of their custom resources, protecting cluster stability. It also annotates Operator APIs with descriptors that enable rich user interfaces in graphical consoles.

Adoption requires understanding that this project is in maintenance mode. The community is no longer accepting new features and will only address critical outage issues and emergent vulnerabilities on a best-effort basis. A successor design is under active development in a separate repository. Teams should evaluate whether the current feature set meets their needs or whether waiting for the new design is preferable. Existing clusters running OLM will continue to receive security updates, making it suitable for maintaining established Operator deployments, but new projects should consider the long-term implications of the maintenance status.

Development activity on the project is minimal and focused narrowly on stability. The team accepts only critical cluster-wide outages with no workaround, closes backlog issues that do not meet this threshold, and handles security vulnerabilities on a best-effort basis rather than with guaranteed response times.