Docker Kubernetes

Docker & Kubernetes Skill

When to use

• Writing or optimizing Dockerfiles for any language/runtime (Node, Python, Go, Java, Rust, …)
• Composing multi-service local development environments with docker compose
• Writing Kubernetes Deployment, Service, ConfigMap, Secret, Ingress, HPA, and PodDisruptionBudget manifests
• Designing Helm charts for reusable, environment-parameterized deployments
• Setting up CI/CD pipelines that build, tag, scan, and push images to a registry
• Diagnosing CrashLoopBackOff, OOMKilled, ImagePullBackOff, pending pods, or resource quota violations
• Hardening containers for production (non-root user, read-only filesystem, seccomp, network policies)

Workflow

Docker

1. Start from a minimal, pinned base image — use official images with an exact version tag (e.g. node:22.4-alpine3.20), never latest.
2. Layer order matters for cache efficiency — copy dependency manifests first, install dependencies, then copy source code. This keeps the expensive install layer cached when only source files change.
3. Use multi-stage builds — one stage to compile/build, a second minimal stage to ship. The final image should contain only the runtime artifact and its direct OS dependencies.
4. Set a non-root user — add RUN addgroup -S app && adduser -S app -G app and USER app before the final CMD.
5. Write a .dockerignore — exclude .git, node_modules, dist, .env*, test files, and any secrets.
6. Use COPY --chown=app:app instead of a separate RUN chown to avoid creating an extra layer.
7. Scan the image — run docker scout cves <image> or trivy image <image> in CI before pushing.
8. Publish a health check — HEALTHCHECK CMD curl -f http://localhost:8080/health || exit 1.

Kubernetes

1. Namespace everything — never deploy application workloads to default; create per-environment namespaces (app-prod, app-staging).
2. Set resource requests and limits on every container — without requests, the scheduler cannot bin-pack correctly; without limits, a runaway process can evict neighbours.
3. Use Deployments, not bare Pods — Deployments provide rolling updates, rollback, and self-healing.
4. Configure liveness and readiness probes — readiness gates traffic; liveness restarts a stuck container. Do not share the same endpoint for both.
5. Use ConfigMaps for non-secret config; Secrets for credentials — mount as environment variables or volume files; never bake secrets into the image.
6. Set replicas: 2 minimum for production and add a PodDisruptionBudget (minAvailable: 1) to survive node maintenance.
7. Use HorizontalPodAutoscaler tied to CPU/memory or custom metrics for variable-load services.
8. Apply NetworkPolicies — default-deny all ingress/egress within a namespace, then explicitly allow only required paths.
9. Roll out with kubectl rollout — use --record is deprecated; instead annotate with kubectl annotate deployment/<name> kubernetes.io/change-cause="<reason>".
10. Drain and verify before deleting nodes — kubectl drain <node> --ignore-daemonsets --delete-emptydir-data.

Standards

Do

• Pin base image digests (FROM node:22.4-alpine3.20@sha256:<digest>) in production Dockerfiles for reproducible builds.
• Use ENTRYPOINT ["executable"] + CMD ["arg1"] (exec form, not shell form) to ensure signals propagate correctly to PID 1.
• Label images with org.opencontainers.image.* labels (source, revision, created) for traceability.
• Store Kubernetes manifests in version control alongside application code (deploy/k8s/ or a separate gitops repo).
• Use Helm values.yaml for environment-specific overrides; keep secrets out of values.yaml — inject via helm upgrade --set-string from CI secrets or an external secrets operator.
• Set imagePullPolicy: Always for mutable tags in development; use IfNotPresent with immutable SHA-tagged images in production.

Do not

• Do not run containers as root in production.
• Do not use CMD with shell form (CMD npm start) — signals like SIGTERM are not forwarded to the Node process.
• Do not embed .env files or credentials in Docker images at any build stage.
• Do not use docker run with --privileged unless the workload explicitly requires it (e.g., a container runtime within a container).
• Do not kubectl apply -f - directly to production without a review step; use a GitOps controller (Argo CD, Flux) or a manual approval gate in CI.
• Do not set CPU limits below what the runtime's JIT or GC needs — Java/Node cold starts spike CPU and will be throttled into extreme slowness.
• Do not store state in a Deployment pod's local filesystem — use PersistentVolumeClaims or external storage for anything that must survive a pod restart.

Common mistakes to avoid

Output format

Minimal production Dockerfile (Node example):

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1
FROM node:22.4-alpine3.20 AS deps
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm ci --omit=dev

FROM node:22.4-alpine3.20 AS runner
RUN addgroup -S app && adduser -S app -G app
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=deps --chown=app:app /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --chown=app:app . .
USER app
EXPOSE 8080
HEALTHCHECK CMD wget -qO- http://localhost:8080/health || exit 1
ENTRYPOINT ["node"]
CMD ["dist/server.js"]

Kubernetes Deployment snippet:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: api
  namespace: app-prod
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: api
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: api
    spec:
      securityContext:
        runAsNonRoot: true
        runAsUser: 1000
      containers:
        - name: api
          image: registry.example.com/api:sha256-abc123
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080
          resources:
            requests:
              cpu: "100m"
              memory: "128Mi"
            limits:
              cpu: "500m"
              memory: "512Mi"
          readinessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /ready
              port: 8080
            initialDelaySeconds: 5
            periodSeconds: 10
          livenessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /health
              port: 8080
            initialDelaySeconds: 15
            periodSeconds: 20
          envFrom:
            - configMapRef:
                name: api-config
          env:
            - name: DB_PASSWORD
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: api-secrets
                  key: db_password

Related checklists

• .claude/checklists/devops.md
• .claude/checklists/security.md
• .claude/checklists/launch.md
• .claude/checklists/performance.md

Related agents

• .claude/agents/engineering/infrastructure-engineer.md
• .claude/agents/engineering/backend-engineer.md
• .claude/agents/quality/security-auditor.md
• .claude/agents/core/orchestrator.md