k8s-manifest-generator

SKILL.md

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

Always set resource requests and limits - Prevents resource starvation

Implement health checks - Ensures Kubernetes can manage your application

Use specific image tags - Avoid unpredictable deployments

Apply security contexts - Run as non-root, drop capabilities

Use ConfigMaps and Secrets - Separate config from code

Label everything - Enables filtering and organization

Follow naming conventions - Use standard Kubernetes labels

Validate before applying - Use dry-run and validation tools

Version your manifests - Keep in Git with version control

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:

Store in Git repository

Set up CI/CD pipeline for deployment

Consider using Helm or Kustomize for templating

Implement GitOps with ArgoCD or Flux

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