Kubernetes Pod Spec Review

Kubernetes Pod Spec Review

Purpose

Review Kubernetes Pod, Deployment, and StatefulSet specifications for probe correctness, resource QoS configuration, securityContext posture, image pull policy safety, secret consumption patterns, topology spread, and termination grace period alignment. Output a structured findings list with severity, evidence, and safe remediation steps — aligned with CKAD domain knowledge and production-readiness standards.

Lean operating rules

• Check both livenessProbe and readinessProbe; flag missing probes as HIGH for Deployments receiving traffic. Flag aggressive livenessProbe.failureThreshold (<=2) that kills pods during GC pauses.
• Review resources.requests and resources.limits; flag missing requests (unschedulable under pressure) as MEDIUM and flag CPU limits without requests as Burstable QoS risk.
• Audit securityContext at both pod level (runAsNonRoot, seccompProfile) and container level (allowPrivilegeEscalation: false, readOnlyRootFilesystem: true, capabilities.drop: [ALL]).
• Flag latest image tag combined with imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent as HIGH — image is never refreshed after first pull.
• Flag Secrets consumed via envFrom.secretRef (bulk-mount exposes all keys) as MEDIUM; recommend volume mounts or specific env.valueFrom.secretKeyRef.
• Check topologySpreadConstraints for multi-replica Deployments; flag absence as MEDIUM (single AZ failure = full outage).
• Review terminationGracePeriodSeconds against application drain time; flag default 30s for gRPC or database workloads as MEDIUM.
• Label all findings as live evidence, documentation-based, or inference.

References

Load these only when needed:

• Workflow and output contract

Response minimum

• Severity-labeled findings list (CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW)
• Evidence source for each finding
• Specific field path that caused the finding (e.g., spec.containers[0].livenessProbe)
• Recommended remediation with example YAML snippet
• Overall production-readiness verdict