☁ No setup — fastest
Run instantly in your browser on iximiuz Labs — zero install, real clusters, nothing to clean up. Best way to start.
Kubelings
Fix broken-on-purpose clusters until an automated check passes — the rustlings way. 116 lessons for engineers building real Kubernetes muscle memory, from first pod to node and control-plane failures below kubectl.
A broken cluster in your terminal: filter to a lesson, inject the broken state into a live kind cluster, and let the automated check decide — it only passes once the cluster is genuinely fixed.
- 116Lessons
- 11Modules
- 40+Real incidents
What is Kubelings?
Section titled “What is Kubelings?”Kubelings is hands-on Kubernetes practice in the spirit of rustlings and golings: a sequence of small, broken-on-purpose clusters, each with an automated check that only passes when you’ve genuinely fixed the problem.
Best for engineers preparing for CKA / CKAD / CKS, or anyone who wants Kubernetes reflexes — not just theory. Beginner → advanced, free, and it runs the same on a browser VM or your own laptop.
Two ways to run
Section titled “Two ways to run”💻 Local — offline / air-gap
Clone the repo and run on kind with the TUI or CLI. See
Getting Started. One source of truth drives both — the
checks are identical.
The eleven-module curriculum
Section titled “The eleven-module curriculum”From first pod to control-plane internals, platform engineering, and the node/host failures below kubectl — with real, cited production incidents reproduced as runnable lessons along the way.
| # | Module | You learn | Lessons |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Foundations | pods, Deployments, Services, the triage loop | 7 |
| 02 | Workloads | HPA, StatefulSets, PDBs, OOMKill, probes, VPA, KEDA | 21 |
| 03 | Config & Storage | ConfigMaps, Secrets, PV/PVC, Helm, Kustomize | 10 |
| 04 | Networking | Ingress, Gateway API, NetworkPolicy, CoreDNS, CNI | 11 |
| 05 | Scheduling & Placement | affinity, taints, topology spread, preemption | 5 |
| 06 | Security | RBAC, Pod Security, Gatekeeper, Kyverno, Falco, cosign | 18 |
| 07 | Internals | API server, etcd, scheduler, CRDs, operators, HA | 12 |
| 08 | Observability & SRE | SLO burn-rate, OTel tracing, node triage, upgrades | 10 |
| 09 | War Stories (capstone) | multi-concept cascades from real postmortems | 7 |
| 10 | Platform Engineering | Argo CD, Flux, Capsule, Cluster API, Crossplane | 6 |
| 11 | Node & Control Plane | kubelet/containerd/etcd/apiserver on real hosts — iximiuz Labs only | 9 |
Browse every lesson, with skill outcomes and the incident write-ups →
Every lesson is one of four types — three hands-on (you fix a live cluster, verify-gated) and one read-only:
- lab hands-on concept lesson
- incident hands-on real production incident, reproduced
- drill hands-on synthetic failure pattern
- read read-only runbook, no tasks
What makes it different
Section titled “What makes it different”Interactive Go TUI
Press ↵ on a lesson — it spins up a 3-node kind cluster, injects the
broken state, and drops you into a shell. Progress markers per lesson, no YAML
editing to start. See The TUI.
Real incidents, reproduced
40+ cited production postmortems — Zalando, Reddit, OpenAI, Monzo, Grafana — reproduced as runnable lessons on the same broken state the original team faced. Real vs synthetic is labeled honestly. Browse them in the Catalog.
Check-driven
Each lesson ships init + verify tasks; the check turns green only when the
cluster is genuinely in the target state — no self-grading.
Hardened by design
init/verify scripts run in a confined context — they can’t reach outside
the cluster. Your host filesystem, credentials, and network are never touched.
See Security.
About the author
Section titled “About the author”Kubelings is created and maintained by Madhan Kumaravelu
(@madhank93 · madhan.app) —
the 116 lessons, the incident library, the TUI, and the engine that runs every
scenario both on iximiuz Labs and on local kind. Found a bug or want a lesson
added? Open an issue.