How much Kubernetes do you already have?
Be honest — nobody is watching. This only decides which chapters come first; every chapter stays open to you either way.
“I can run a working app on a cluster.”
Start with the core objects — Pods, Deployments, Services — and a local cluster you can actually deploy to.
- You're comfortable with Docker and a Dockerfile
- You haven't run kubectl against a real cluster before
- You want Pods, Deployments and Services once, in order
“I can run a real cluster.”
You can deploy a Pod. Now learn what a real cluster needs: networking, storage, health checks, autoscaling, Helm, and RBAC.
- Comfortable with core objects and kubectl
- You've had a Pod crash-loop and stared at `kubectl get pods` for answers
- You want a cluster that's actually production-shaped
“I can reason about the control plane.”
Cluster architecture, custom resources, service meshes, and the GitOps/observability layer behind a cluster run at organizational scale.
- You can already ship a production-shaped app to a cluster
- You debug scheduler and networking edge cases, not just crash loops
- You want the why under the control plane, meshes and GitOps
Not sure? Start at Beginner — every path opens at the section people usually skip.
Full syllabus
Everything each level eventually covers — ticked sections are written, the rest are still on the desk.
Beginner0 / 7 sections written
- What Kubernetes is & whycoming soon
The orchestration problem it actually solves
- Pods, Deployments & Servicescoming soon
The core objects, and how they relate
- kubectl basicscoming soon
The CLI workflow
- Namespaces & basic organizationcoming soon
Grouping resources sensibly
- ConfigMaps & Secretscoming soon
Getting config and secrets into a Pod
- A local clustercoming soon
minikube/kind, running your first app
- YAML manifestscoming soon
Reading and writing them without fear
✅ Checkpoint: you can write a Deployment and Service manifest from scratch and run it on a local cluster (minikube/kind), without copying a tutorial.
Intermediate0 / 9 sections written
- Deployments in depthcoming soon
Rolling updates, rollbacks, replicas
- Services & networkingcoming soon
ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer, Ingress
- Persistent storagecoming soon
PersistentVolumes, PersistentVolumeClaims
- Health checkscoming soon
Liveness, readiness, startup probes
- Resource managementcoming soon
Requests/limits, autoscaling (HPA)
- Helmcoming soon
Packaging and templating manifests
- Namespaces & RBACcoming soon
Access control basics
- CI/CD to Kubernetescoming soon
Deploying from a pipeline
- Debugging a clustercoming soon
Logs, exec, describe, common failure modes
✅ Checkpoint: you can deploy an app with an Ingress, persistent storage, health checks and autoscaling, packaged as a Helm chart, through a CI/CD pipeline.
Advanced0 / 8 sections written
- Cluster architecturecoming soon
Control plane, etcd, kubelet, scheduler
- Custom Resources & Operatorscoming soon
Extending the API, automating operational knowledge
- Service meshescoming soon
Istio/Linkerd basics, when you actually need one
- Multi-cluster & multi-tenancycoming soon
Strategies for running more than one cluster
- Securitycoming soon
Pod Security Standards, network policies, image scanning
- Observabilitycoming soon
Prometheus/Grafana on Kubernetes
- Cost & resource optimizationcoming soon
Right-sizing at scale
- GitOpscoming soon
ArgoCD/Flux, declarative cluster management
✅ Checkpoint: you can explain the control plane's role in a scheduling decision, defend when a service mesh earns its complexity, and design a GitOps deployment flow.
- This assumes Docker already — it starts at "why one container isn't enough," not at what a container is. If that's shaky, the Docker topic on this shelf comes first.
- Helm shows up in intermediate, not beginner, on purpose — templating manifests only makes sense once you've felt the pain of writing several by hand.
- Service meshes and GitOps are the deepest, most infrastructure-team layer — most application developers on a cluster never operate them directly, but the advanced tier doesn't skip them.