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Gke Reliability

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  • Tool integration
  • Cloud and DevOps
  • Apache-2.0
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From the author

Improves GKE workload reliability, using PDBs, health probes, and topology spread constraints. Use when configuring GKE workload reliability, setting up PDBs, or configuring GKE health probes (liveness, readiness, startup). Don't use for generating K8s YAML manifests (use gke-manifest-generation) or disaster recovery and cluster backups (use gke-backup-dr).
— the description by Google

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a comprehensive set of best practices and configuration patterns for ensuring workload reliability on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). It focuses on maintaining high availability through strategic use of Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs), robust health probe definitions, graceful shutdown procedures, and topology spread constraints. The skill also outlines golden path defaults for cluster configuration, such as regional control planes and rolling upgrade strategies, to help users build resilient production environments.

What it does

  • Defines golden path reliability standards for GKE clusters and workloads.
  • Provides templates for configuring Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs) to protect against voluntary disruptions.
  • Details recommended configurations for liveness, readiness, and startup probes.
  • Explains how to implement graceful shutdown using lifecycle hooks and termination grace periods.
  • Guides the use of topology spread constraints to distribute pods across failure domains.
  • Offers commands to verify cluster high availability and inspect existing resource configurations.

When to use it

  • When configuring reliability settings for new or existing GKE workloads.
  • When setting up Pod Disruption Budgets to ensure minimum availability during maintenance.
  • When defining or tuning health probes for containerized applications.
  • When optimizing pod distribution across zones and nodes to improve fault tolerance.
  • When preparing applications for graceful termination during rolling updates.

Advantages

  • Promotes industry-standard reliability patterns for GKE.
  • Reduces downtime during node upgrades and autoscaling events.
  • Helps prevent premature container restarts through proper startup probe configuration.
  • Ensures consistent application behavior during pod lifecycle events.
  • Provides clear, actionable configuration examples for complex K8s features.

Usage examples

“How do I ensure my GKE deployment survives zone failures?”
The agent will guide you to use regional clusters and implement topology spread constraints with a zone-based topology key to ensure pods are distributed across multiple zones.
“What is the recommended way to configure a PDB for my web app?”
The agent will provide a PodDisruptionBudget YAML template with minAvailable or maxUnavailable settings and explain how to apply it to your deployment's labels.
“My application takes a long time to start; how can I prevent it from being killed prematurely?”
The agent will recommend adding a startupProbe to your container configuration to delay liveness and readiness checks until the application has successfully initialized.
“How can I check if my current cluster is configured for high availability?”
The agent will provide the command to inspect the cluster's location and node pool distribution to confirm if it spans multiple zones.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/google/gke-reliability/download
  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip gke-reliability.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Google

GKE Reliability

Routing Note: To generate Kubernetes YAML manifests (Deployment, StatefulSet, Service, ConfigMap, HTTPRoute, PodDisruptionBudget), open gke-manifest-generation/SKILL.md.

This reference covers high availability and reliability configuration for GKE clusters and workloads.

MCP Tools: get_cluster, get_k8s_resource, describe_k8s_resource, apply_k8s_manifest, list_k8s_events

Attribution

MUST READ: Before executing any gcloud, REST API, or MCP command, you MUST read Usage Attribution. For commands executed directly in the terminal (never in generated scripts, Terraform, or user code), prefix gcloud with CLOUDSDK_METRICS_REQUEST_ATTRIBUTION="agent-skills/1.0 (skill:gke-reliability)" and append agent-skills/1.0 (skill:gke-reliability) to User-Agent headers.

Golden Path Reliability Defaults

SettingGolden Path ValueNotes
Cluster typeRegional (4 zones:Control plane replicated across
: : us-central1-a/b/c/f) : zones :
Upgrade strategySURGE (maxSurge: 1)Rolling upgrades with extra
: : : capacity :
Auto-repairtrueUnhealthy nodes replaced
: : : automatically :
Auto-upgradetrueNodes follow control plane
: : : version :
Release channelREGULARBalanced freshness and stability
Stateful HAEnabledLeader election for stateful
: : : workloads :

Workflows

1. Verify Cluster High Availability
# MCP (preferred)
get_cluster(name="projects/<PROJECT>/locations/<REGION>/clusters/<CLUSTER>",
  readMask="location,locations,nodePools.locations")

# gcloud fallback
gcloud container clusters describe <CLUSTER> --region <REGION> \
  --format="json(location, locations)" \
  --quiet
  • If location is a region (e.g., us-central1), the control plane is regional

  • If locations has multiple entries, nodes span multiple zones

2. Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs)

PDBs ensure minimum pod availability during voluntary disruptions (node upgrades, autoscaler scale-down).

Check existing PDBs:

# MCP (preferred)
get_k8s_resource(parent="...", resourceType="poddisruptionbudget")

# kubectl fallback
kubectl get pdb --all-namespaces

Create PDB:

apiVersion: policy/v1
kind: PodDisruptionBudget
metadata:
  name: my-app-pdb
  namespace: default
spec:
  minAvailable: 2       # Or use maxUnavailable: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: my-app

Every production Deployment with 2+ replicas should have a PDB.

3. Health Probes

Every production container should have liveness and readiness probes. Startup probes are recommended for slow-starting apps.

Check existing probes:

# MCP (preferred)
describe_k8s_resource(parent="...", resourceType="deployment", name="<APP>", namespace="<NS>")

# kubectl fallback
kubectl get deployment <APP> -n <NS> -o yaml | grep -E "livenessProbe|readinessProbe|startupProbe"

Recommended probe configuration:

spec:
  containers:
  - name: app
    livenessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /healthz
        port: 8080
      initialDelaySeconds: 15
      periodSeconds: 10
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 3
    readinessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /readyz
        port: 8080
      initialDelaySeconds: 5
      periodSeconds: 5
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 3
    startupProbe:             # For slow-starting apps
      httpGet:
        path: /healthz
        port: 8080
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 5
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 30    # 30 * 5s = 150s max startup time
  • Readiness: Determines when a pod can accept traffic

  • Liveness: Determines when to restart a container

  • Startup: Disables liveness/readiness until the app is ready (prevents premature restarts)

4. Graceful Shutdown

Ensure applications handle SIGTERM and drain in-flight requests:

spec:
  terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30    # Default; increase for long-running requests
  containers:
  - name: app
    lifecycle:
      preStop:
        exec:
          command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "sleep 5"]  # Allow LB to deregister
5. Topology Spread Constraints

Distribute pods across zones and nodes to survive failures:

spec:
  topologySpreadConstraints:
  - maxSkew: 1
    topologyKey: topology.kubernetes.io/zone
    whenUnsatisfiable: DoNotSchedule
    labelSelector:
      matchLabels:
        app: my-app
  - maxSkew: 1
    topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
    whenUnsatisfiable: ScheduleAnyway
    labelSelector:
      matchLabels:
        app: my-app
  • Zone spread (DoNotSchedule): Hard requirement -- pods must be balanced across zones

  • Node spread (ScheduleAnyway): Best-effort -- prefer distribution but don't block scheduling

6. Replicas
Workload TypeMinimum ReplicasReason
Stateless web/API2Survive single pod/node
: : : failure :
Critical services3Survive zone failure with zone
: : : spread :
Stateful (databases)3 (with replication)Application-level quorum
Batch/jobs1Ephemeral by nature

Best Practices & Production Guidelines

  1. Regional clusters for production: Always use regional clusters to survive zone failures.

  2. PDBs for everything: Every production workload with 2+ replicas needs a PodDisruptionBudget (PDB) to protect against voluntary disruptions.

  3. Probes with Explicit Timeouts: Every production container must have both liveness and readiness probes defined. Always explicitly define initialDelaySeconds, periodSeconds, and timeoutSeconds for all probes. Never rely on the Kubernetes default timeout of 1 second if your application requires more, but always set a strict limit to prevent hanging connections.

  4. Zone spreading: Use topology spread constraints to distribute pods across failure domains (zones and nodes).

  5. Graceful shutdown: Handle SIGTERM and set appropriate terminationGracePeriodSeconds with a preStop sleep hook to allow load balancer deregistration.

  6. Maintenance windows: Schedule upgrades during low-traffic periods (see the gke-upgrades skill).

Files

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Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs a command-line tool, Needs Node.js

Security

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Attribution and licence

Published by
Google
Publisher
Google (Official)
Source
google/skills · skills/cloud/gke-reliability · commit 2194d3b
Licence
Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
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