Kubernetes for Developers: Deploying and Scaling Node.js Apps with k8s

Kubernetes is intimidating until you understand the core primitives.
Here's the minimum you need to deploy a real Node.js app.

Core Concepts (Plain English)

• Pod: One or more containers running together. The smallest deployable unit.
• Deployment: Manages a set of identical Pods. Handles restarts and rollouts.
• Service: Stable network endpoint that routes traffic to Pods.
• Ingress: Routes external HTTP traffic to Services.
• ConfigMap: Non-sensitive configuration data.
• Secret: Sensitive data (passwords, API keys).

Deploying a Node.js API

# deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: my-api
  labels:
    app: my-api
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: my-api
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: my-api
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: api
          image: my-registry/my-api:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 3000
          env:
            - name: NODE_ENV
              value: production
            - name: DATABASE_URL
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: app-secrets
                  key: database-url
          resources:
            requests:
              memory: '128Mi'
              cpu: '100m'
            limits:
              memory: '256Mi'
              cpu: '500m'
          readinessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /health
              port: 3000
            initialDelaySeconds: 5
            periodSeconds: 10
          livenessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /health
              port: 3000
            initialDelaySeconds: 15
            periodSeconds: 20

Service

# service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-api
spec:
  selector:
    app: my-api
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 3000
  type: ClusterIP  # internal only; use LoadBalancer for external

Secrets

# Create secret from env file
kubectl create secret generic app-secrets \
  --from-literal=database-url='postgresql://...' \
  --from-literal=stripe-key='sk_live_...'

Horizontal Pod Autoscaler

apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: my-api-hpa
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: my-api
  minReplicas: 2
  maxReplicas: 10
  metrics:
    - type: Resource
      resource:
        name: cpu
        target:
          type: Utilization
          averageUtilization: 70

Zero-Downtime Deployments

spec:
  strategy:
    type: RollingUpdate
    rollingUpdate:
      maxSurge: 1        # create 1 extra pod during update
      maxUnavailable: 0  # never go below desired replica count

Common kubectl Commands

# Apply all manifests
kubectl apply -f k8s/

# Check deployment status
kubectl rollout status deployment/my-api

# View pods
kubectl get pods

# View logs
kubectl logs -f deployment/my-api

# Scale manually
kubectl scale deployment/my-api --replicas=5

# Rollback
kubectl rollout undo deployment/my-api

# Exec into pod
kubectl exec -it pod/my-api-xxx -- sh

Health Check Endpoint

// Required for liveness/readiness probes
app.get('/health', async (req, res) => {
  try {
    await prisma.$queryRaw`SELECT 1`  // verify DB connection
    res.json({ status: 'ok', uptime: process.uptime() })
  } catch (err) {
    res.status(503).json({ status: 'error', message: err.message })
  }
})

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