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Using decK with Kong Konnect

You can manage Kong Gateway core entity configuration in your Konnect organization using decK.

decK can only target one control plane at a time.

Managing multiple control planes requires a separate state file per control plane.

You cannot use decK to publish content to the Dev Portal, manage application registration, or configure custom plugins.

Konnect flags

You can use deck commands such as ping, diff, or sync with --konnect flags to interact with Konnect.

If you don’t pass a Konnect flag to decK, decK looks for a local Kong Gateway instance instead.

--konnect-addr: Address of the Konnect endpoint. (Default: "https://us.api.konghq.com")
--konnect-email: Email address associated with your Konnect account.
--konnect-password: Password associated with your Konnect account. This takes precedence over the --konnect-password-file flag.
--konnect-password-file: File containing the password to your Konnect account.
--konnect-runtime-group-name: Konnect runtime group name.
--konnect-token: Personal access token associated with your Konnect account (kpat_*), or with a system account (spat_*). This takes precedence over the --konnect-token-file flag.
--konnect-token-file: File containing the personal access token to your Konnect account, or to a system account.

Note: Prior to decK 1.12, decK provided deck konnect commands. Those commands are deprecated and have been replaced with the flags in this guide.

Authenticate with Konnect

decK looks for Konnect credentials in the following order of precedence:

Credentials set with a flag, either --konnect-password or --konnect-token
decK configuration file, if one exists (default lookup path: $HOME/.deck.yaml)
Credential file passed with a flag, either --konnect-password-file or --konnect-token-file

For example, if you have both a decK config file and a Konnect password file, decK uses the password in the config file.

Authenticate using a plaintext password

You can use the --konnect-password flag to provide the password directly in the command:

deck ping \
  --konnect-email example@example.com \
  --konnect-password YOUR_PASSWORD

Authenticate using a password file

You can save your Konnect password to a file, then pass the filename to decK with --konnect-password-file:

deck ping \
  --konnect-email example@example.com \
  --konnect-password-file /PATH/TO/FILE

Authenticate using a decK config file

By default, decK looks for a configuration file named .deck.yaml in the $HOME directory. This file lets you specify flags to include with every decK command.

You can create the file at the default location, or set a custom filename and path with --config.

If you store Konnect credentials in the file, decK uses the credentials for every command. Set either konnect-password or konnect-password-file in the decK config file.

Use konnect-password to store Konnect credentials directly in the configuration file:
```
  konnect-email: example@email.com
  konnect-password: YOUR_PASSWORD
```
Store your password in a separate file, then specify the path to konnect-password-file instead of a literal password:
```
  konnect-email: example@example.com
  konnect-password-file: PATH/TO/FILENAME
```

decK automatically uses the credentials from $HOME/.deck.yaml in any subsequent calls:

deck ping

Successfully Konnected to the Example-Name organization!

Authenticate using a personal access token

You can generate a personal access token (PAT) in Konnect for authentication with decK commands. This is more secure than basic authentication, and can be useful for organizations with CI pipelines that can’t use the standard username and password authentication.

There are two types of PATs available for Konnect:

Personal access tokens associated with user accounts
System account access tokens associated with system accounts Learn more about system accounts in the Konnect System Accounts documentation.

Before you generate a PAT, keep the following in mind:

A PAT is granted all of the permissions that the user has access to via their most up-to-date role assignment.
The PAT has a maximum duration of 12 months.
There is a limit of 10 personal access tokens per user.
Unused tokens are deleted and revoked after 12 months of inactivity.

User Account Token

System Account Token

To generate a PAT for a user account in Konnect, select your user icon to open the context menu and click Personal access tokens, then click Generate token.

Create a system account token through the Konnect API.

Important: The access token is only displayed once, so make sure you save it securely.

You can use the --konnect-token flag to pass the PAT directly in the command:

deck ping \
  --konnect-token YOUR_KONNECT_TOKEN

You can save your Konnect PAT to a file, then pass the filename to decK with --konnect-token-file:

deck ping \
  --konnect-token-file /PATH/TO/FILE

Target a Konnect API

Use --konnect-addr to select the API to connect to.

The default API decK uses is https://us.api.konghq.com, which targets the cloud.konghq.com environment.

Kong Gateway supports AU, EU, and US geographic regions. To target a specific geo, set konnect-addr to one of the following:

AU geo:"https://au.api.konghq.com"
EU geo:"https://eu.api.konghq.com"
US geo:"https://us.api.konghq.com"

Control planes

Each state file targets one control plane. If you don’t provide a control plane, decK targets the default control plane.

If you have a custom control plane, you can specify it in the state file, or use a flag when running any decK command.

Target a control plane in your state file with the _konnect.runtime_group_name parameter:
```
  _format_version: "3.0"
  _konnect:
    runtime_group_name: staging
```
Set a control plane using the --konnect-runtime-group-name flag:
```
  deck sync --konnect-runtime-group-name staging
```

Troubleshoot

Authentication with a Konnect password or token file is not working

If you have verified that your password or token is correct but decK can’t connect to your account, check for conflicts with the decK config file ($HOME/.deck.yaml) and the Konnect password or token file. A decK config file is likely conflicting with the password or token file and passing another set of credentials.

To resolve, remove one of the duplicate sets of credentials.

Workspace connection refused

When migrating from Kong Gateway to Konnect, make sure to remove any _workspace tags. If you leave _workspace in, you get the following error:

Error: checking if workspace exists

Remove the _workspace key to resolve this error.

You can now sync the file as-is to apply it to the default control plane or add a key to apply the configuration to a specific control plane.

To apply the configuration to custom control planes, replace _workspace with control_plane_name: ExampleName.

For example, to export the configuration from workspace staging to control plane staging, you would change:

_workspace: staging

To:

_konnect:
  runtime_group_name: staging

ACL, Key Auth, or OpenID Connect plugins and app registration

You may encounter one of the following scenarios with the ACL, Key Authentication, or OpenID Connect (OIDC) plugins:

The plugins are visible in the Gateway Manager, but don’t appear in the output from a deck dump or deck diff.
When trying to set up one of the plugins with app registration enabled, you see the following error:
```
  {Create} plugin key-auth for service example_service failed: HTTP status 400
```

This is intentional. When you have application registration enabled, decK doesn’t manage these plugins, and doesn’t let you create duplicates of the plugin entries.

When setting up app registration, Konnect enables two plugins automatically: ACL, and either Key Authentication or OIDC, depending on your choice of authentication. These plugins run in the background to support application registration for an API product. They are managed entirely by Konnect, so you can’t manage these plugins directly.

Read Manage application registration for more information.

decK targets Kong Gateway instead of Konnect

decK can run against Kong Gateway or Konnect. By default, it targets Kong Gateway, unless a setting tells decK to point to Konnect instead.

decK determines the environment using the following order of precedence:

If the declarative configuration file contains the _konnect entry, decK runs against Konnect.
If the --kong-addr flag is set to a non-default value, decK runs against Kong Gateway.
If Konnect credentials are set in any way (flag, file, or decK config), decK runs against Konnect.
If none of the above are present, decK runs against Kong Gateway.