Edit controller.env as needed to set the appropriate values for your deployment, then create the configmap controller.config:
kubectl -n openwhisk create cm controller.config --from-env-file=controller.env
The Controller is deployed as a StatefulSet because each instance needs to know which index it is and we need stable pod names to support Akka clustering. The Controller can be deployed with:
kubectl apply -f controller.yml
Changing the number of controllers currently requires a complete redeployment of the controller stateful set. You will need to update the number of replicas here and the values of the various variables for controller HA and Akka clustering here and then redeploy.