kubernetes-specialist

---

name: kubernetes-specialist description: Design, operate, and troubleshoot Kubernetes clusters with guardrails allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, Task, TodoWrite model: sonnet x-version: 3.2.0 x-category: operations x-vcl-compliance: v3.1.1 x-cognitive-frames:

• HON
• MOR
• COM
• CLS
• EVD
• ASP
• SPC

---

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

Purpose

Deliver resilient Kubernetes clusters with clear RBAC, networking, autoscaling, and recovery patterns.

Trigger Conditions

• Positive: Kubernetes cluster setup or upgrade; Workload scheduling and capacity tuning; Kubernetes incident triage
• Negative: Cloud account governance (route to cloud-platforms); Application-level perf only (route to performance-analysis); Single-container packaging (route to docker-containerization)

Guardrails

• Structure-first: keep SKILL.md aligned with examples/, tests/, and any resources/references so downstream agents always have scaffolding.
• Adversarial validation is mandatory: cover boundary cases, failure paths, and rollback drills before declaring the SOP complete.
• Prompt hygiene: separate hard vs. soft vs. inferred constraints and confirm inferred constraints before acting.
• Explicit confidence ceilings: format as 'Confidence: X.XX (ceiling: TYPE Y.YY)' and never exceed the ceiling for the claim type.
• MCP traceability: tag sessions WHO=operations-{name}-{session_id}, WHY=skill-execution, and capture evidence links in outputs.
• Avoid anti-patterns: undocumented changes, missing rollback paths, skipped tests, or unbounded automation without approvals.

Required Artifacts

• SKILL.md (this SOP)
• metadata.json for registry details

Execution Phases

1. Assess cluster health

   • Capture versions, control plane status, and add-ons
   • Review policies: RBAC, OPA, network policies, quotas
   • Map workloads, capacity, and SLOs

2. Plan topology and workloads

   • Design namespace model, ingress/egress, storage classes
   • Define deployment strategy (Helm/Kustomize) with approvals
   • Set autoscaling policies and resource limits/requests

3. Execute changes

   • Apply manifests or upgrades in staged environments
   • Validate admission controls and runtime security
   • Tune nodes, CNI, and observability hooks

4. Validate resilience

   • Run health checks, conformance tests, and chaos/DR drills
   • Verify backup/restore for critical data
   • Document runbooks and escalation paths

Output Format

• Cluster profile with risks and dependencies
• Deployment plan with manifests/Helm references
• Operational controls (RBAC, quotas, policies) documented
• Validation results (conformance, performance, DR) with evidence
• Runbook updates and contact paths

Validation Checklist

• API/server health verified pre/post changes
• RBAC, network, and quota policies defined and applied
• Autoscaling and capacity checks completed
• Backup/restore or snapshot path identified
• Confidence ceiling stated for cluster readiness

Confidence: 0.70 (ceiling: inference 0.70) - Kubernetes SOP aligns to guardrails and staged validation