Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)

The CKAD certification tests your ability to design, build, and run applications in Kubernetes. It's focused on real-world usage of Kubernetes primitives — deployments, configs, probes, volumes, and services — from a developer's perspective.

🧠 Exam Overview

  • Format: Hands-on, browser-based lab
  • Duration: 2 hours
  • Passing score: 66%
  • Price: $395 USD (includes one retake)
  • Open book: Access to kubernetes.io/docs

📋 Domains & Weights

Domain Weight
Core Concepts 13%
Configuration 18%
Multi-Container Pods 10%
Observability 18%
Pod Design 20%
Services & Networking 13%
State Persistence 8%

✅ What You Should Master

1. Core Concepts (13%)

  • Pod lifecycle and restart policies
  • YAML basics: kind, metadata, spec
  • kubectl explain, run, logs, exec

2. Configuration (18%)

  • ConfigMaps & Secrets (env and volumes)
  • env, envFrom, valueFrom
  • Probes: liveness, readiness, startup
  • Resource requests and limits
  • initContainers

3. Pod Design (20%)

  • Deployments, ReplicaSets, Jobs, CronJobs
  • Multi-container Pods (sidecar pattern)
  • Labels & selectors
  • Rolling updates & rollbacks

4. Multi-Container Pods (10%)

  • Sharing volumes, network namespace
  • Common patterns:
  • Sidecar (logging, proxy)
  • Adapter (log converter, translator)
  • Ambassador (external traffic entrypoint)

5. Observability (18%)

  • kubectl logs, describe, top
  • Events and debugging Pods
  • Container exit codes and status
  • Custom probes for health checks
  • Monitoring concepts (but not setup)

6. Services & Networking (13%)

  • ClusterIP, NodePort (no LoadBalancer config needed)
  • Headless Services
  • DNS-based Pod discovery
  • Understanding service selectors

7. State Persistence (8%)

  • Volumes and volumeMounts
  • PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs)
  • AccessModes: ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany
  • EmptyDir (for temporary scratch space)

⚙️ Practice Tips

  • Alias often-used commands:
alias k=kubectl
alias kgp='kubectl get pods'
alias kaf='kubectl apply -f'
  • Use dry-run + output:
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx --dry-run=client -o yaml
  • Practice common configs:
  • YAML for Pods with ConfigMap/Secret env vars
  • Liveness and readiness probes
  • Multi-container Pod with shared volume

🧪 Test Environment Tips

  • Open docs in one tab, terminal in another
  • Bookmark these:
  • Tasks
  • kubectl Cheat Sheet
  • Workloads Overview
  • Use kubectl explain to recall spec fields quickly
  • Copy/paste manifest scaffolds from the docs to save time

Summary

The CKAD exam tests your Kubernetes fluency as a developer. You’ll create and configure Pods, manage configs and secrets, debug issues, and expose applications.

If you’re confident writing manifests and using kubectl with speed, you’re ready to pass.