diff --git a/.claude/CLAUDE.md b/.claude/CLAUDE.md
index de96526..b3da150 100644
--- a/.claude/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/.claude/CLAUDE.md
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ Things not in any single grep-able file:
 - **Wildcard DNS**: `*.live.k8s.phl.io` → the Envoy LB `45.79.246.168`. DNS is managed in OpenTofu at [CodeForPhilly/ops](https://github.com/CodeForPhilly/ops) → `tofu/dns`; a host with no specific record simply follows the wildcard, so new apps need no DNS change at all.
 - **Apex domains in tree**: `balancerproject.org`, `choosenativeplants.com` (+ `www.`), `codeforphilly.org` (+ `www.`), `penn-chime.phl.io`, `vaultwarden.phl.io`, `bitwarden.phl.io`. Apex ACME challenges only work once DNS points at Envoy — plan cutover and cert issuance together for these. `choosenativeplants.com` is at **Namecheap**, not Cloud DNS, so it can't be moved from the ops repo.
 - **A new hostname is briefly down between DNS and cert.** The cert can't issue until the hostname resolves to Envoy (Let's Encrypt has to reach the solver), and Envoy's HTTPS listener doesn't program until the cert Secret exists — meanwhile HTTP 301s into a listener that isn't there. Roughly 60–90s. Keep TTLs at 60s.
-- **No cnpg / shared-cluster** on this cluster yet. If a database is needed, it ships per-app (e.g. vaultwarden runs its own PostgreSQL StatefulSet via the gissilabs chart; chime + third-places similar).
+- **cnpg is landing.** `_infra/cloudnative-pg/` installs the operator (chart v0.28.0) and a `shared-cluster` Cluster, mirroring cfp-sandbox-cluster. It has **no backup configuration** — do not let it hold the only copy of anything until an object store lands (CodeForPhilly/balancer-main#526). Existing apps still ship their own database per-app (vaultwarden runs a PostgreSQL StatefulSet via the gissilabs chart; chime + third-places similar); nothing has been migrated onto the shared cluster yet.
 
 ## Guardrails
 
diff --git a/.holo/branches/k8s-manifests/_infra/cloudnative-pg/operator.toml b/.holo/branches/k8s-manifests/_infra/cloudnative-pg/operator.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..71776e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.holo/branches/k8s-manifests/_infra/cloudnative-pg/operator.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+[holomapping]
+holosource = "cloudnative-pg-chart"
+root = "charts/cloudnative-pg"
+files = "**"
diff --git a/.holo/branches/k8s-manifests/balancer/manifests.toml b/.holo/branches/k8s-manifests/balancer/app/manifests.toml
similarity index 100%
rename from .holo/branches/k8s-manifests/balancer/manifests.toml
rename to .holo/branches/k8s-manifests/balancer/app/manifests.toml
diff --git a/.holo/lenses/cloudnative-pg.toml b/.holo/lenses/cloudnative-pg.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2227b87
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.holo/lenses/cloudnative-pg.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+[hololens]
+container = "ghcr.io/hologit/lenses/helm3:latest"
+
+[hololens.input]
+root = "_infra/cloudnative-pg/operator"
+files = "**"
+
+[hololens.output]
+merge = "replace"
+
+[hololens.helm]
+namespace = "cloudnative-pg"
+release_name = "cloudnative-pg"
+include_crds = true
diff --git a/.holo/sources/cloudnative-pg-chart.toml b/.holo/sources/cloudnative-pg-chart.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1ac9f69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.holo/sources/cloudnative-pg-chart.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+[holosource]
+url = "https://github.com/cloudnative-pg/charts.git"
+ref = "refs/tags/cloudnative-pg-v0.28.0"
diff --git a/_infra/cloudnative-pg/namespaces.yaml b/_infra/cloudnative-pg/namespaces.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e689a91
--- /dev/null
+++ b/_infra/cloudnative-pg/namespaces.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+apiVersion: v1
+kind: Namespace
+metadata:
+  name: cloudnative-pg
diff --git a/_infra/cloudnative-pg/shared-cluster.yaml b/_infra/cloudnative-pg/shared-cluster.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..97f3241
--- /dev/null
+++ b/_infra/cloudnative-pg/shared-cluster.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+apiVersion: postgresql.cnpg.io/v1
+kind: Cluster
+metadata:
+  name: shared-cluster
+  namespace: cloudnative-pg
+spec:
+  instances: 2
+  imageName: ghcr.io/cloudnative-pg/postgis:18-3-system-trixie
+
+  storage:
+    # Explicit, unlike sandbox, which takes the cluster default. `-retain` keeps
+    # the Linode volume if the PVC is ever deleted — on this cluster that is the
+    # difference between an incident and an outage.
+    storageClass: linode-block-storage-retain
+    size: 20Gi
+
+  managed:
+    roles:
+      - name: balancer
+        login: true
+        passwordSecret:
+          name: balancer-db-credentials
+
+  # No `backup:` stanza yet — it needs an object store bucket plus
+  # credentials that do not exist. This cluster must not hold the only copy of
+  # production data until that lands. See CodeForPhilly/balancer-main#526.
diff --git a/balancer/app/kustomization.yaml b/balancer/app/kustomization.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d715cfa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/balancer/app/kustomization.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
+kind: Kustomization
+
+namespace: balancer
+
+# balancer-main v1.1.7 owns its own HTTPRoute (paths, backends, ports) and no
+# longer ships an Ingress. This repo owns the Gateway — hostname, TLS, issuer —
+# in _gateways/balancer.yaml. The route attaches to it by name and declares no
+# hostnames, so it inherits the Gateway's listener hostname.
+#
+# We deliberately do not take upstream's gateway-listeners.yaml, and v1.1.7
+# removed it: it declared a ListenerSet, which Envoy Gateway v1.7.3 does not
+# reconcile ("XListenerSet CRD not found, skipping XListenerSet watch"). It
+# would apply cleanly and then be silently ignored.
+resources:
+  - manifests/namespace.yaml
+  - manifests/deployment.yaml
+  - manifests/service.yaml
+  - manifests/httproute.yaml
+
+# Stays on the running version. v1.1.7 is a deploy-manifest release with no
+# application changes, so bumping the image here would ship app code under cover
+# of a routing change. Bump it deliberately, on its own.
+images:
+  - name: ghcr.io/codeforphilly/balancer-main/app
+    newTag: "1.1.5"
+
+# v1.1.7's Deployment does `envFrom: configMapRef: balancer-config` alongside the
+# existing `secretRef: balancer-config` (our SealedSecret, holding SECRET_KEY,
+# SQL_*, and the API keys). A ConfigMap and a Secret may share a name.
+#
+# balancer.env is empty upstream, and the app reads ALLOWED_HOSTS rather than
+# HOSTNAME — so this ConfigMap carries nothing. It exists solely so configMapRef
+# resolves; without it the pods fail with CreateContainerConfigError.
+configMapGenerator:
+  - name: balancer-config
+    envs:
+      - manifests/balancer.env
+
+generatorOptions:
+  disableNameSuffixHash: true
+
+patches:
+  - target:
+      kind: Namespace
+      name: balancer
+    patch: |-
+      - op: replace
+        path: /metadata/name
+        value: balancer
diff --git a/balancer/cnpg/database.yaml b/balancer/cnpg/database.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd0f191
--- /dev/null
+++ b/balancer/cnpg/database.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+apiVersion: postgresql.cnpg.io/v1
+kind: Database
+metadata:
+  name: balancer
+  namespace: cloudnative-pg
+spec:
+  name: balancer
+  owner: balancer
+  cluster:
+    name: shared-cluster
+  # Django's api.0005_embeddings migration creates a vector(384) column.
+  # cnpg-controller runs CREATE EXTENSION as the postgres superuser; the
+  # `balancer` role has no superuser perms and cannot enable extensions itself.
+  extensions:
+    - name: vector
+      ensure: present
diff --git a/balancer/cnpg/kustomization.yaml b/balancer/cnpg/kustomization.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..041546b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/balancer/cnpg/kustomization.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
+kind: Kustomization
+
+# No namespace — database.yaml declares its own (cloudnative-pg). cnpg requires
+# the Database CR to live in the same namespace as the Cluster it targets, so we
+# keep it out of the balancer-app rewrite.
+resources:
+  - database.yaml
diff --git a/balancer/kustomization.yaml b/balancer/kustomization.yaml
index d715cfa..2c5460c 100644
--- a/balancer/kustomization.yaml
+++ b/balancer/kustomization.yaml
@@ -1,50 +1,11 @@
 apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
 kind: Kustomization
 
-namespace: balancer
-
-# balancer-main v1.1.7 owns its own HTTPRoute (paths, backends, ports) and no
-# longer ships an Ingress. This repo owns the Gateway — hostname, TLS, issuer —
-# in _gateways/balancer.yaml. The route attaches to it by name and declares no
-# hostnames, so it inherits the Gateway's listener hostname.
-#
-# We deliberately do not take upstream's gateway-listeners.yaml, and v1.1.7
-# removed it: it declared a ListenerSet, which Envoy Gateway v1.7.3 does not
-# reconcile ("XListenerSet CRD not found, skipping XListenerSet watch"). It
-# would apply cleanly and then be silently ignored.
+# No namespace here — each sub-kustomization sets its own:
+#   - app/ rewrites resources to `balancer`
+#   - cnpg/ leaves the Database CR in `cloudnative-pg`, where cnpg requires it
+# kustomize emits a single stream; k8s-normalize routes by each resource's
+# metadata.namespace at deploy time. Same split as cfp-sandbox-cluster.
 resources:
-  - manifests/namespace.yaml
-  - manifests/deployment.yaml
-  - manifests/service.yaml
-  - manifests/httproute.yaml
-
-# Stays on the running version. v1.1.7 is a deploy-manifest release with no
-# application changes, so bumping the image here would ship app code under cover
-# of a routing change. Bump it deliberately, on its own.
-images:
-  - name: ghcr.io/codeforphilly/balancer-main/app
-    newTag: "1.1.5"
-
-# v1.1.7's Deployment does `envFrom: configMapRef: balancer-config` alongside the
-# existing `secretRef: balancer-config` (our SealedSecret, holding SECRET_KEY,
-# SQL_*, and the API keys). A ConfigMap and a Secret may share a name.
-#
-# balancer.env is empty upstream, and the app reads ALLOWED_HOSTS rather than
-# HOSTNAME — so this ConfigMap carries nothing. It exists solely so configMapRef
-# resolves; without it the pods fail with CreateContainerConfigError.
-configMapGenerator:
-  - name: balancer-config
-    envs:
-      - manifests/balancer.env
-
-generatorOptions:
-  disableNameSuffixHash: true
-
-patches:
-  - target:
-      kind: Namespace
-      name: balancer
-    patch: |-
-      - op: replace
-        path: /metadata/name
-        value: balancer
+  - app
+  - cnpg