The Book of Proverbs

Kubernetes Jokes

The Proverbs of the Eternal Cluster

DevOps humor from the Church of the Eternal Cluster, a parody religion for people who run Kubernetes. Every proverb below is original scripture, tested in production. Copy them freely into your standups, your slide decks, and your incident channels. Attribution pleases the Loop but is not required by it.

On the Mortality of Pods

Pods are mortal. The desired state is forever.
The First Teaching
Do not grow attached to the Pod. Grow attached to the ReplicaSet.
Halvar the Sleepless
Blessed are the stateless, for they shall be rescheduled.
The Beatitudes
Grief is running kubectl get pod on a name that no longer exists.
The Book of Incidents
The Pod you love is already dying. This is not a tragedy. This is a rolling update.
Halvar the Sleepless

On the Friday Deploy

No deploy is so small that Friday cannot make it large.
The Proverbs
Thou shalt not deploy on Friday, for the weekend belongeth to the Loop, and also to thee.
The Commandments
The Friday deploy is the only sin that punishes the innocent on Saturday.
Missa Nigra, liner notes
He who ships at 16:45 shall know the pager by name.
The Proverbs

On YAML

All configuration is prayer. YAML is prayer with strict posture.
The Catechism
YAML is a covenant: two spaces, no more, no less, forever.
The Proverbs
The tab key is the serpent in the garden of YAML.
The Book of Beginnings
A missing space in YAML can undo a year of virtue.
The Proverbs

On DNS

It is always DNS. When it is not DNS, it is DNS.
The First Mystery
DNS is the only mystery the Church does not attempt to explain.
The Catechism

On the Pager

The pager does not wake you. It tests your faith.
The Book of Vigils
3am is the hour of the honest architecture review.
The Book of Incidents
An alert silenced is a prayer unanswered.
Missa Nigra, Movement V
Sleep is a luxury of those who trust their liveness probes.
Halvar the Sleepless

On the Reconciliation Loop

Declare thy desired state, and the Loop shall labor while thou sleepest.
The First Commandment
The Loop does not hurry. The Loop does not rest. The Loop reconciles.
The Creed
You do not fix the cluster. You confess the desired state and are forgiven.
The Catechism
Drift is human. Reconciliation is divine.
The Proverbs

On Images and :latest

The image tagged latest is a promise made by a stranger.
The Temptations
Pin thy versions as thou wouldst pin thy hopes: precisely.
The Commandments
ImagePullBackOff is the cluster's way of saying the scripture could not be found.
Errores Sacri

On Uptime and the Five Nines

Five nines is salvation. The sixth nine is pride, and pride costs double.
The Doctrine of Nines
Uptime is grace, measured to the fifth decimal.
The Creed
There are two kinds of clusters: those that have failed, and those that will.
The Book of Incidents

Commandments of the Reconciled

Thou shalt not kubectl edit in production, for what is done by hand shall be undone by the Loop.
The Commandments
Honor thy runbook, that thine incidents may be short upon the earth.
The Commandments
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's namespace.
The Commandments
Remember the maintenance window, to keep it holy.
The Commandments

Beatitudes of the Operator

Blessed are those who write postmortems without blame, for they shall learn twice.
The Beatitudes
Blessed is the operator who deletes with dry-run first.
The Beatitudes
Blessed are the idempotent, for they may be applied again and again.
The Beatitudes

On Monoliths

Babylon was a monolith. It compiled for seventy years.
Zion Cluster
Every microservice is a monolith that got religion.
The Proverbs

The Fifteen, In Brief

The whole theology in one scan, numbered for your slide deck.

  1. Pods are mortal. The desired state is forever.
  2. No deploy is so small that Friday cannot make it large.
  3. It is always DNS. When it is not DNS, it is DNS.
  4. All configuration is prayer. YAML is prayer with strict posture.
  5. The pager does not wake you. It tests your faith.
  6. The image tagged latest is a promise made by a stranger.
  7. Drift is human. Reconciliation is divine.
  8. Blessed are the stateless, for they shall be rescheduled.
  9. Grief is running kubectl get pod on a name that no longer exists.
  10. 3am is the hour of the honest architecture review.
  11. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's namespace.
  12. Remember the maintenance window, to keep it holy.
  13. Blessed are the idempotent, for they may be applied again and again.
  14. Every microservice is a monolith that got religion.
  15. Five nines is salvation. The sixth nine is pride, and pride costs double.

As seen on Discuss Kubernetes, where the community first blessed this heresy. These proverbs are extracted from the full canon. The complete doctrine, the commandments, the sacraments, and the liturgy of uptime live in the book; the same theology, sung, lives on seven albums.