Kubernetes Manifest Generator

Step-by-step guidance for creating production-ready Kubernetes manifests including Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Secrets, and PersistentVolumeClaims.

Purpose

This skill provides comprehensive guidance for generating well-structured, secure, and production-ready Kubernetes manifests following cloud-native best practices and Kubernetes conventions.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

• Create new Kubernetes Deployment manifests
• Define Service resources for network connectivity
• Generate ConfigMap and Secret resources for configuration management
• Create PersistentVolumeClaim manifests for stateful workloads
• Follow Kubernetes best practices and naming conventions
• Implement resource limits, health checks, and security contexts
• Design manifests for multi-environment deployments

Detailed patterns and worked examples

Detailed pattern documentation lives in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.

Best Practices Summary

1. Always set resource requests and limits - Prevents resource starvation
2. Implement health checks - Ensures Kubernetes can manage your application
3. Use specific image tags - Avoid unpredictable deployments
4. Apply security contexts - Run as non-root, drop capabilities
5. Use ConfigMaps and Secrets - Separate config from code
6. Label everything - Enables filtering and organization
7. Follow naming conventions - Use standard Kubernetes labels
8. Validate before applying - Use dry-run and validation tools
9. Version your manifests - Keep in Git with version control
10. Document with annotations - Add context for other developers

Troubleshooting

Pods not starting:

• Check image pull errors: kubectl describe pod <pod-name>
• Verify resource availability: kubectl get nodes
• Check events: kubectl get events --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'

Service not accessible:

• Verify selector matches pod labels: kubectl get endpoints <service-name>
• Check service type and port configuration
• Test from within cluster: kubectl run debug --rm -it --image=busybox -- sh

ConfigMap/Secret not loading:

• Verify names match in Deployment
• Check namespace
• Ensure resources exist: kubectl get configmap,secret

Next Steps

After creating manifests:

1. Store in Git repository
2. Set up CI/CD pipeline for deployment
3. Consider using Helm or Kustomize for templating
4. Implement GitOps with ArgoCD or Flux
5. Add monitoring and observability

Related Skills

• helm-chart-scaffolding - For templating and packaging
• gitops-workflow - For automated deployments
• k8s-security-policies - For advanced security configurations