Planes

Planes register the clusters that do the actual work. The control plane holds all the CRDs and controllers; the planes are where workloads run, builds execute, and telemetry is collected. Each plane kind has a namespaced and a cluster-scoped variant; the platform admin registers them at install time.

API group	openchoreo.dev/v1alpha1
Audience	Platform admin
Referenced by	Environment (data plane), WorkflowRun (workflow plane)

DataPlane

Registers a Kubernetes cluster where workloads run, including its gateway and connection details. An Environment maps to a DataPlane via spec.dataPlaneRef, and a RenderedRelease is applied to it.

Kind	DataPlane / ClusterDataPlane
Scope	Namespaced / Cluster

WorkflowPlane

Registers a cluster for CI/build execution (Argo Workflows). A WorkflowRun executes here. A ClusterWorkflow can only reference a cluster-scoped ClusterWorkflowPlane.

Kind	WorkflowPlane / ClusterWorkflowPlane
Scope	Namespaced / Cluster

ObservabilityPlane

Registers a cluster that collects logs, metrics, and traces (OpenSearch, Prometheus). Telemetry from workloads flows here and back to the portal.

Kind	ObservabilityPlane / ClusterObservabilityPlane
Scope	Namespaced / Cluster

Create in the portal

Planes are not created from the Create… page — a platform admin registers them at install time (the install labels the control-plane namespace and registers the data, workflow, and observability planes). Once registered, the connected planes show on the console home page, and an Environment selects a data plane via dataPlaneRef.

Full guide: Platform admin: architecture and topology.

See also

• Architecture — the five-plane model in depth.
• Platform admin: architecture and topology — registering and operating the planes.
• Environment · Workflow
• Upstream field-level API reference.