README.md
1# Consul [![CircleCI](https://circleci.com/gh/hashicorp/consul/tree/main.svg?style=svg)](https://circleci.com/gh/hashicorp/consul/tree/main) [![Discuss](https://img.shields.io/badge/discuss-consul-ca2171.svg?style=flat)](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/c/consul)
2
3* Website: https://www.consul.io
4* Tutorials: [HashiCorp Learn](https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul)
5* Forum: [Discuss](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/c/consul)
6
7Consul is a distributed, highly available, and data center aware solution to connect and configure applications across dynamic, distributed infrastructure.
8
9Consul provides several key features:
10
11* **Multi-Datacenter** - Consul is built to be datacenter aware, and can
12 support any number of regions without complex configuration.
13
14* **Service Mesh/Service Segmentation** - Consul Connect enables secure service-to-service
15 communication with automatic TLS encryption and identity-based authorization. Applications
16 can use sidecar proxies in a service mesh configuration to establish TLS
17 connections for inbound and outbound connections without being aware of Connect at all.
18
19* **Service Discovery** - Consul makes it simple for services to register
20 themselves and to discover other services via a DNS or HTTP interface.
21 External services such as SaaS providers can be registered as well.
22
23* **Health Checking** - Health Checking enables Consul to quickly alert
24 operators about any issues in a cluster. The integration with service
25 discovery prevents routing traffic to unhealthy hosts and enables service
26 level circuit breakers.
27
28* **Key/Value Storage** - A flexible key/value store enables storing
29 dynamic configuration, feature flagging, coordination, leader election and
30 more. The simple HTTP API makes it easy to use anywhere.
31
32Consul runs on Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Windows. A commercial
33version called [Consul Enterprise](https://www.hashicorp.com/products/consul)
34is also available.
35
36**Please note**: We take Consul's security and our users' trust very seriously. If you
37believe you have found a security issue in Consul, please [responsibly disclose](https://www.hashicorp.com/security#vulnerability-reporting) by
38contacting us at security@hashicorp.com.
39
40## Quick Start
41
42A few quick start guides are available on the Consul website:
43
44* **Standalone binary install:** https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/consul/get-started-install
45* **Minikube install:** https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/consul/kubernetes-minikube
46* **Kind install:** https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/consul/kubernetes-kind
47* **Kubernetes install:** https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/consul/kubernetes-deployment-guide
48
49## Documentation
50
51Full, comprehensive documentation is available on the Consul website:
52
53https://www.consul.io/docs
54
55## Contributing
56
57Thank you for your interest in contributing! Please refer to [CONTRIBUTING.md](https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/blob/main/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md) for guidance.
58