I find that equally triggering

Can’t appeal to everyone. Tell me what triggers you. I’m the author and I’m looking forward to your feedback.

You proposed it as an alternative to the complexity in the OP, but it's more or less the same thing: edit a bunch of config files and run some cryptic commands

It’s not an alternative. It’s a different technology stack altogether. I posted it as a response to show you that one does not need Kubernetes to run Keycloak.

What would you expect to see instead of a bunch of configuration files and cryptic commands?

> What would you expect to see instead of a bunch of configuration files and cryptic commands?

The fact that you even need to ask ..

Like, it's so _obvious_ that any computer system can't possible be made to work properly without a bunch of cryptic configuration files and cryptic commands.

> it's so _obvious_ that any computer system can't possible be made to work without

Indeed. The sad world of configuration files and cryptic commands.