Day 15: Automating Workflows with Kustomize and Skaffold

Welcome to Day 15 of the Zero to Platform Engineer in 30 Days challenge! 🚀 Today, we’re diving into workflow automation for Kubernetes using Kustomize and Skaffold, two tools that simplify managing and deploying Kubernetes configurations

Jan 29, 20252 min readenpart 16 of 27

Why Automate Kubernetes Workflows?

Automation helps you:

Simplify complex deployments.

Increase development speed with streamlined workflows.
Maintain consistent environments across teams.

🎯 Key Concepts:

Kustomize: Customize Kubernetes YAML configurations without modifying the original files.
Skaffold: Automate the build, push, and deployment process for Kubernetes applications.

What Is Kustomize?

Kustomize is a Kubernetes-native configuration tool that allows you to:

Overlay changes to YAML manifests.
Reuse and customize resources for different environments.

🎯 Use Case: Configure a single application for dev, staging, and production without duplicating YAML files.

What Is Skaffold?

Skaffold is a command-line tool that automates Kubernetes workflows, including:

Building container images.
Pushing images to registries.
Deploying applications to Kubernetes clusters.

🎯 Use Case: Speed up development by automating repetitive tasks.

Hands-On: Automating Workflows with Kustomize and Skaffold

Step 1: Set Up Kustomize

Create a base configuration (base/deployment.yaml):

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: app
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: app
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: nginx:1.21

Create a development configuration (overlays/dev/deployment.yaml):

bases:
  - ../../base

patchesStrategicMerge:
  - deployment-patch.yaml

Create a patch file (overlays/dev/deployment-patch.yaml):

spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: nginx:1.21-alpine

Build the configuration for the dev environment:

kubectl apply -k overlays/dev

Step 2: Automate with Skaffold

Install Skaffold:

curl -Lo skaffold https://storage.googleapis.com/skaffold/releases/latest/skaffold-linux-amd64
chmod +x skaffold
sudo mv skaffold /usr/local/bin

Create a skaffold.yaml file:

apiVersion: skaffold/v2beta26
kind: Config
build:
  artifacts:
    - image: app
deploy:
  kustomize:
    paths:
      - ./overlays/dev

Run Skaffold

skaffold dev

Skaffold will monitor changes, build new images, and redeploy automatically.

Activity for Today

Set up Kustomize for a sample application with different environments.
Automate your Kubernetes workflow with Skaffold.
Test live changes in your application using Skaffold’s auto-deploy feature.

What’s Next?

Tomorrow, we’ll explore building a developer-friendly platform by integrating tools like Backstage for internal developer portals.

Get ready to level up your platform engineering skills! 🚀

👉 Check it out here: Zero to Platform Engineer Repository

Feel free to clone the repo, experiment with the code, and even contribute if you’d like! 🚀

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