Tool	Purpose
`eksctl`	Cluster infrastructure management (create/delete clusters, nodegroups, addons)
`kubectl`	Workload management (pods, deployments, services)

Use eksctl for cluster-level operations; use kubectl for application-level operations.

Common Operations

Cluster Management

# List clusters
eksctl get cluster --region us-east-1

# Get cluster info
eksctl get cluster --name production --region us-east-1

# Update kubeconfig
eksctl utils write-kubeconfig --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Describe cluster stacks
eksctl utils describe-stacks --cluster production --region us-east-1

Nodegroup Operations

# List nodegroups
eksctl get nodegroup --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Create nodegroup
eksctl create nodegroup \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <nodegroup-name> \
  --node-type t3.medium \
  --nodes 2 \
  --nodes-min 1 \
  --nodes-max 4

# Scale nodegroup
eksctl scale nodegroup \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <nodegroup-name> \
  --nodes 3

# Delete nodegroup
eksctl delete nodegroup \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <nodegroup-name>

# Drain nodegroup (for upgrades)
eksctl drain nodegroup \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <nodegroup-name>

Addon Management

# List addons
eksctl get addon --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Get addon details
eksctl get addon --cluster production --region us-east-1 --name <addon-name>

# Create addon
eksctl create addon \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <addon-name> \
  --version <version>

# Update addon
eksctl update addon \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <addon-name> \
  --version <new-version>

# Delete addon
eksctl delete addon \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <addon-name>

Current Addons (production cluster)

Addon	Version	Status
adot	v0.141.0-eksbuild.1	ACTIVE
amazon-cloudwatch-observability	v4.8.0-eksbuild.1	ACTIVE
aws-efs-csi-driver	v2.1.15-eksbuild.1	ACTIVE
aws-network-flow-monitoring-agent	v1.1.1-eksbuild.1	ACTIVE
cert-manager	v1.19.2-eksbuild.1	ACTIVE
eks-pod-identity-agent	v1.3.10-eksbuild.2	ACTIVE
metrics-server	v0.8.0-eksbuild.6	ACTIVE

IAM & OIDC

# Associate OIDC provider
eksctl utils associate-iam-oidc-provider \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --approve

# Create IAM service account
eksctl create iamserviceaccount \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --name <sa-name> \
  --attach-policy-arn <policy-arn> \
  --approve

# List IAM service accounts
eksctl get iamserviceaccount --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Delete IAM service account
eksctl delete iamserviceaccount \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --name <sa-name>

Pod Identity Associations

# Create pod identity association
eksctl create podidentityassociation \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --service-account-name <sa-name> \
  --role-arn <role-arn>

# List pod identity associations
eksctl get podidentityassociation --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Delete pod identity association
eksctl delete podidentityassociation \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --service-account-name <sa-name>

Cluster Upgrades

# Check available upgrades
eksctl upgrade cluster \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --dry-run

# Upgrade control plane
eksctl upgrade cluster \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --version <new-version> \
  --approve

# Upgrade nodegroup
eksctl upgrade nodegroup \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <nodegroup-name> \
  --kubernetes-version <new-version>

Access Management

# Get access entries
eksctl get accessentry --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Create access entry
eksctl create accessentry \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --principal-arn <arn>

# Delete access entry
eksctl delete accessentry \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --principal-arn <arn>

Fargate Profiles

# List Fargate profiles
eksctl get fargateprofile --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Create Fargate profile
eksctl create fargateprofile \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <profile-name> \
  --namespace <namespace>

# Delete Fargate profile
eksctl delete fargateprofile \
  --cluster production \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --name <profile-name>

Cluster Creation (Reference)

For creating new clusters (typically done via Terraform in this project):

# Create cluster with config file
eksctl create cluster -f cluster-config.yaml

# Create cluster with CLI options
eksctl create cluster \
  --name <cluster-name> \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --version 1.34 \
  --nodegroup-name <ng-name> \
  --node-type t3.medium \
  --nodes 2 \
  --managed

Output Formatting

# JSON output
eksctl get cluster --region us-east-1 -o json

# YAML output
eksctl get cluster --region us-east-1 -o yaml

Troubleshooting

Check CloudFormation Stacks

eksctl uses CloudFormation under the hood:

# Describe stacks
eksctl utils describe-stacks --cluster production --region us-east-1

# Check for stack issues
aws cloudformation describe-stack-events \
  --stack-name eksctl-production-cluster \
  --region us-east-1

Common Issues

Issue	Cause	Solution
`No nodegroups found`	Nodegroups managed by Karpenter	Use `kubectl get nodepools` instead
`ResourceInUseException`	Resource being modified	Wait and retry
`AccessDenied`	Missing IAM permissions	Check IAM roles

Integration Notes

Karpenter: This cluster uses Karpenter for node provisioning instead of managed nodegroups
kubectl: Use kubectl skill for workload operations (k1 for production, k2 for staging)
ArgoCD/Kargo: Use GitOps skills for application deployments
AWS CLI: Use aws-cli skill for other AWS resource management

eksctl

eksctl Skill

Environment

Current Cluster

eksctl vs kubectl