End-to-end discipline for building Kubernetes Operators correctly. Catches the recurring reconcile-loop bugs (missing finalizers, blocking calls, status drift, RBAC over-grants, no requeue) before they reach a cluster.

What's inside

3 stdlib Python tools — CRD validator, reconcile-loop linter, OperatorHub capability auditor
4 reference docs — operator pattern, CRD design, reconcile patterns, framework comparison
Asset templates — production CRD YAML + Go controller skeleton (both pass the linters)
/operator-audit slash command — runs all 3 tools and produces a report

Install

# Via Claude Code marketplace
/plugin install kubernetes-operator

# Or clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills.git
cd claude-skills/engineering/kubernetes-operator

Quick start

SKILL=engineering/kubernetes-operator/skills/kubernetes-operator

python "$SKILL/scripts/crd_validator.py" --crd config/crd/myapp.yaml
python "$SKILL/scripts/reconcile_lint.py" --controller controllers/myapp_controller.go
python "$SKILL/scripts/operator_capability_audit.py" --operator-dir .

Scope

This is the Operator pattern specifically. For other Kubernetes work:

Helm chart authoring → helm-chart-builder
Kubectl operations / blue-green deploys → senior-devops
General k8s security → cloud-security
Cloud architecture → aws-solution-architect, azure-cloud-architect, gcp-cloud-architect

Key principles

Reconcile is idempotent, declarative, and bounded in time
Status subresource is non-negotiable — without it, status updates loop spec reconciles
Finalizers protect external resources — cascade deletion is the operator pattern's free gift, but only for owned k8s resources
RBAC is least-privilege — controllers shouldn't read secrets they don't need
Capability levels are an SLA, not a label — aim for L3 (Full Lifecycle) before public release

Skill structure

kubernetes-operator/
├── README.md
├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json
└── skills/kubernetes-operator/
    ├── SKILL.md
    ├── scripts/
    │   ├── crd_validator.py
    │   ├── reconcile_lint.py
    │   └── operator_capability_audit.py
    ├── references/
    │   ├── operator_pattern.md
    │   ├── crd_design.md
    │   ├── reconcile_loop.md
    │   └── tooling_landscape.md
    └── assets/
        ├── crd_template.yaml
        └── reconcile_skeleton.go

Verifiable success

A team using this skill should achieve:

100% of new CRDs pass crd_validator.py before merge
All reconcile functions pass reconcile_lint.py strict mode
Operators reach OperatorHub Capability Level 3 before public release
Mean time to fix a reconcile bug: <1 day (no infinite loops in production)

License

MIT — see repo root LICENSE.