Kustomize Skill

Overview

Kustomize is a Kubernetes-native configuration management tool that uses declarative customization to manage environment-specific configurations without templates. It follows the principles of declarative application management and integrates directly with kubectl.

Primary use cases: Multi-environment deployments, resource patching, GitOps workflows, ConfigMap/Secret generation, cross-cutting transformations.

What This Skill Covers

• Multi-Environment Overlays: Dev/staging/prod pattern with base + overlays
• Patch Strategies: Strategic merge vs JSON 6902 patches, when to use each
• Generators: ConfigMap and Secret generation with automatic content hashing
• Transformers: Cross-cutting changes (labels, annotations, namespace, namePrefix/Suffix, images, replicas)
• Components: Reusable optional feature bundles (monitoring, ingress, debug-tools)
• Replacements: Dynamic field substitution for propagating values between resources
• GitOps Integration: ArgoCD, Flux, CI/CD pipeline patterns
• Security: Secret management, image pinning, validation, RBAC patterns