Kubernetes & Helm: Production Infrastructure

Create, review, and architect Kubernetes infrastructure - from raw manifests to Helm charts to multi-cluster strategy. The goal is production-ready, security-hardened, cost-aware infrastructure that a team can maintain.

Target versions (July 2026): Kubernetes 1.34-1.36 supported (1.36 "Haru" released April 22, 2026; 1.36.2 / 1.35.6 / 1.34.9 are the current patches). Upstream Kubernetes has no LTS; community support per minor is ~14 months. 1.33 reached upstream EOL June 28, 2026; 1.32 reached EOL February 28, 2026. Managed vendor extended support (AKS/EKS) carries older minors patches roughly 2 more years - attribute it to the platform, not upstream. Helm 4.2.3, Helm 3.21.3 (parallel v3 maintenance, security fixes until Nov 2026). This skill covers four domains depending on context:

• Manifests - raw YAML for Deployments, Services, Gateway API routes, ConfigMaps, Secrets, PVCs
• Helm - Helm 4 chart scaffolding, OCI registries, templating, multi-environment values
• Architecture - cluster topology, GitOps, security layers, observability, cost, DR
• Compliance - PCI-DSS 4.0 controls, CDE isolation, audit logging, supply chain

When to use