5 Kubernetes YAML Patterns You’ll Actually Use in the Real World

If you’re studying for the CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) exam — or just trying to get better at managing real production clusters — chances are you've Googled half of these YAMLs at 2AM.

Let’s save you the trouble.

Here are 5 Kubernetes YAML patterns that show up over and over in interviews, in exam labs, and in real deployments.

1. Basic Deployment with Resource Limits

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: web
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: web
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: nginx
          image: nginx:latest
          resources:
            requests:
              cpu: "100m"
              memory: "128Mi"
            limits:
              cpu: "200m"
              memory: "256Mi" 

✅ Exam-ready
✅ Production-safe

2. Pod with ConfigMap Mounted as Volume

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: config-demo
spec:
  containers:
    - name: app
      image: busybox
      command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "cat /etc/config/myconfig"]
      volumeMounts:
        - name: config
          mountPath: /etc/config
  volumes:
    - name: config
      configMap:
        name: my-configmap

3. Service + Ingress Combo (for HTTP Routing)

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: web-svc
spec:
  selector:
    app: web
  ports:
    - port: 80
      targetPort: 8080

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: web-ingress
spec:
  rules:
    - host: example.com
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: web-svc
                port:
                  number: 80

4. Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)

apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: web-hpa
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: web
  minReplicas: 2
  maxReplicas: 10
  metrics:
    - type: Resource
      resource:
        name: cpu
        target:
          type: Utilization
          averageUtilization: 60

5. Network Policy to Block All but One Namespace

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: restrict-traffic
spec:
  podSelector: {}
  ingress:
    - from:
        - namespaceSelector:
            matchLabels:
              name: allowed-ns

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