---
title: "Quick Start - Pilot Docs"
description: "Get Pilot running in 5 minutes"
url: "https://docs.calinora.io/getting-started/quickstart/"
---

# Quick Start

This guide connects Pilot to an existing Kafka cluster and walks through the key features.

## 1. Start Pilot

Point Pilot at your Kafka brokers:

```bash
docker run -d \
  --name pilot \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -e KAFKA_BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS=broker1:9092,broker2:9092,broker3:9092 \
  calinora/pilot:latest
```

For SASL or TLS-secured clusters, see [Configuration](https://docs.calinora.io/configuration/).

## 2. Open the Dashboard

Navigate to <http://localhost:8080> in your browser.

The overview page shows:

- **Cluster health** - broker count, under-replicated partitions, offline partitions
- **Broker status** - each broker with its rack, partition count, and leader count
- **Balance status** - whether Pilot recommends a rebalance, and which broker is farthest from its fair share

## 3. Explore Your Cluster

### Brokers

View individual broker details including partition assignments, rack placement, and disk usage.

### Topics

Browse all topics with partition counts, replication factors, and per-partition activity rates.

### Consumer Groups

See all consumer groups, their state, member count, and per-partition lag.

## 4. View the Current Proposal

Click **Proposals** in the navigation to see the current rebalancing proposal. Pilot continuously generates proposals in the background based on cluster state.

The proposal shows:

- **Expected effect on each load** - the broker farthest from its fair share now and after the plan
- **Proposed moves** with source and destination brokers
- **Movement cost** (leader-only, inter-broker, or cross-rack)

You can also fetch it via the API:

```bash
curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/proposals/current
```

## 5. Apply the Proposal

Review the proposal details. When ready, apply it from the UI or API (requires a [license](https://docs.calinora.io/reference/licensing/)):

```bash
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/v1/proposals/current/apply
```

Monitor reassignment progress in real-time from the dashboard, or via API:

```bash
curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/reassignments
```

## Next Steps

- [Docker Quick Start](https://docs.calinora.io/getting-started/quickstart-docker/) - full stack with Docker Compose
- [Environment Variables](https://docs.calinora.io/configuration/environment-variables/) - tune balance thresholds and throttling
- [Monitoring Setup](https://docs.calinora.io/guides/monitoring-setup/) - connect Prometheus and Grafana
- [Self-Healing](https://docs.calinora.io/features/self-healing/) - enable automatic rebalancing