Add Traefik as a Minikube Addon - Modernized Alternative to Retired nginx-ingress #23229

Why we need an alternative load balancer/ingress addon

The current ingress addon is built on ingress-nginx, which has been
officially announced for retirement in March 2026 and will no longer
receive bug fixes or security patches after that date. Traefik is a cloud-native, Kubernetes-first edge router. It is highly dynamic, lightweight, and excels at automatic service discovery. It comes with automatic Let's Encrypt SSL/TLS, a beautiful built-in web dashboard, and deep integration with infrastructure orchestration (like Docker and K8S)
that directly fills this gap.

Advantage of adding it as an addon vs. installing via official docs

Minikube's value (as I have known since I have been using it) is making Kubernetes simple for local development.
Installing Traefik manually requires Helm, CRD installation, and extra
configuration steps. As an add-on, users can just get it with a single command:

minikube addons enable traefik

This is consistent with how addons are in minikube, giving users a supported, pre-configured option
without leaving the minikube ecosystem.

Relationship to existing addons

Traefik is an alternative to the ingress addon (not a replacement). Users who love
Traefik's features (dashboard, automatic Let's Encrypt, middleware support) make it a choice over the default ingress addon. The ingress-dns addon continues to work alongside Traefik unchanged.

Given the nginx-ingress retirement timeline, having Traefik as a tested,
maintained addon also gives minikube a clear migration path for the
ingress addon in the future.

Documentation

I will add a dedicated docs page at:
/docs/handbook/addons/traefik.md

Following the same format as the existing Ingress DNS addon page
(https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/addons/ingress-dns/),
the page will cover:

• Enabling the addon: minikube addons enable traefik
• Accessing the Traefik dashboard
• Creating a sample Ingress object using Traefik
• Migration steps for users coming from the ingress addon

Maintenance

Yes, I volunteer to maintain the Traefik addon. I commit to:

• Keeping it compatible with new minikube releases
• Responding to issues related to this addon
• Updating the image version when Traefik releases new versions (I believe that is what you meant by the maintenance)?