Kubernetes
Kubernetes is the control plane I use when a platform outgrows single-host deployment scripts but still needs predictable rollouts, autoscaling, and blast-radius containment. The hard part is never installing a cluster - it is operating one when traffic spikes, configs drift, and on-call needs answers in minutes.
My Kubernetes writing covers production-ready platform design, CrashLoopBackOff debugging under real constraints, cost-aware autoscaling, and GitOps pipelines that pair Jenkins or GitHub Actions with Argo CD. I treat policy-as-code and admission control as part of the platform contract, not an afterthought.
These articles document failure modes I have seen in production: pods that pass health checks but fail under load, rollouts that need traffic splitting, and mesh adoption decisions that should wait until you have baseline metrics. Start with the pillar posts below if you are building or hardening a cluster today.
- Designing a Production-Ready Kubernetes PlatformA production K8s platform is RBAC, ingress, secrets, observability, and GitOps-not just a cluster. Here is the layered checklist I use before onboarding product teams.
- Kubernetes CrashLoopBackOff: Production Debugging GuideCrashLoopBackOff is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Use kubectl describe, logs --previous, and deployment diffs to find OOM, config, probe, and dependency failures fast.
- Why Do We Need Argo CD If We Already Have Jenkins?Jenkins runs CI workflows; Argo CD continuously reconciles Kubernetes from Git. They complement each other-confusing them leads to drift, risky credentials, and painful rollbacks.
Related writing
AI Infrastructure
AI Agent Infrastructure and Failure Modes
AI agents combine LLM unpredictability with tool execution and long-running state - which creates failure modes traditional APIs never had. These are the ones I have seen in production and how I design around them.
- AI Agents
- Reliability
- Security
Automation
Automating Runbooks with GitHub Actions
Notion runbooks and 3 AM kubectl do not scale. A GitHub Actions pattern for reusable runbook workflows, OIDC to AWS, environment approval gates, and audit trails that on-call rotations can actually trust.
- GitHub Actions
- Automation
- SRE
Reliability
Chaos Engineering for Platform Reliability
Uptime during quiet weeks is not proof of resilience. A hypothesis-driven chaos playbook-tooling choices, blast radius controls, and the path from staging game days to bounded production experiments.
- Reliability
- SRE
- Kubernetes
CI/CD
Designing GitOps With Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and Argo CD
Most teams do not need one CI/CD tool to rule them all. After running Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and Argo CD together in production, the golden rule is simple: GHA for CI, Jenkins for specialized automation, Argo CD for Kubernetes CD.
- GitOps
- GitHub Actions
- Jenkins
Kubernetes
Designing a Production-Ready Kubernetes Platform
A production K8s platform is RBAC, ingress, secrets, observability, and GitOps-not just a cluster. Here is the layered checklist I use before onboarding product teams.
- Kubernetes
- Platform Engineering
- AWS
Reliability
Designing Zero-Downtime Deployments
Zero downtime needs compatible migrations, readiness probes, and graceful shutdown-then choose rolling, blue-green, or canary based on blast radius and rollback needs.
- CI/CD
- Kubernetes
- Reliability
AI Infrastructure
Evaluating AI Coding Agents in CI
HumanEval scores do not predict whether an agent will break your migrations. A fixture-based eval harness, autonomy tiers, and CI gates that treat agent patches with the same distrust as human ones.
- AI Agents
- CI/CD
- GitHub Actions
Kubernetes
Cost-Aware Autoscaling on Kubernetes
HPA, VPA, and Cluster Autoscaler fight each other when requests are wrong and metrics lie. A production playbook for scaling signals, instance mix, and scale-down discipline that protects SLOs without inflating the EKS bill.
- Kubernetes
- Cost
- AWS
Kubernetes
Kubernetes CrashLoopBackOff: Production Debugging Guide
CrashLoopBackOff is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Use kubectl describe, logs --previous, and deployment diffs to find OOM, config, probe, and dependency failures fast.
- Kubernetes
- Debugging
Architecture
Multi-Tenant SaaS Isolation Patterns
White-label platforms like Edmingle sit on an isolation spectrum from shared RLS to dedicated clusters. A production-oriented guide to data boundaries, Kubernetes tenancy, noisy-neighbor controls, and tier migrations.
- SaaS
- Architecture
- Security
Security
Policy as Code for Kubernetes Gatekeeping
Wiki standards do not stop :latest tags and root containers. A Gatekeeper and Kyverno playbook for admission control, audit-then-enforce rollouts, and CI integration that actually changes developer behavior.
- Kubernetes
- Security
- Policy
AI Security
Prompt Injection Defenses for Internal Agents
SSO does not stop an injected Jira ticket from triggering a production runbook. Defense layers for internal AI agents-tool allowlists, context separation, approval gates, and blast radius containment.
- AI Agents
- Security
- Platform Engineering
Security
Secrets Management for Platform Teams
Hardcoded API keys in .env files do not survive a team of ten, three environments, and a compliance audit. Here is the secrets management approach I implement for platform teams on AWS.
- Security
- AWS
- Platform Engineering
Networking
Service Mesh: When You Need It and When You Do Not
Istio demos look effortless at fifteen services. A production decision framework for mesh adoption-signals that justify sidecars, alternatives that do not, and incremental rollout without cluster-wide regret.
- Kubernetes
- Networking
- Architecture
Reliability
Webhook Idempotency in Production
Payment providers like Razorpay, Stripe, and PayU will deliver the same webhook more than once. If your handler is not idempotent, you will double-charge, double-enroll, or double-ship. Here is the pattern I use in production.
- APIs
- Reliability
- Payments
CI/CD
Why Do We Need Argo CD If We Already Have Jenkins?
Jenkins runs CI workflows; Argo CD continuously reconciles Kubernetes from Git. They complement each other-confusing them leads to drift, risky credentials, and painful rollbacks.
- GitOps
- Kubernetes
- CI/CD