The real graded Kubernetes tasks the portal assigns, grouped into three levels.
The portal assigns these Kubernetes tasks. Finish Level 1 before Level 2 and Level 2 before Level 3. Your mentor may mark some tasks as required for the certificate.
Level 1: Foundations (12 tasks)
Task
What to do
Why Kubernetes
In a repo named k8s-internship, explain containers, orchestration, and what the control plane, nodes, pods and kubelet do.
Local cluster
Create a local cluster with kind, minikube or k3d and check it with kubectl get nodes.
kubectl basics
Use kubectl get, describe, logs, exec and delete, and write a cheat sheet.
Your first pod
Write a Pod YAML for Nginx, apply it, port-forward to it and open it in the browser.
Deployments
Create a Deployment with 3 replicas, delete a pod and watch Kubernetes replace it.
Services
Expose your Deployment with ClusterIP and NodePort Services and explain the difference.
Namespaces
Create dev and test namespaces and deploy the same app in both.
ConfigMaps and Secrets
Pass settings with a ConfigMap and a password with a Secret, and explain why Secrets still need care.
Labels and selectors
Use labels to group pods and select them with kubectl and Services.
Build and load your image
Containerise a small API, load the image into your local cluster and run it.
Rolling updates
Update your app's image, watch the rollout and roll back with kubectl rollout undo.
Resource requests and limits
Set CPU and memory requests and limits and explain what happens when a pod uses too much memory.
Level 2: Building real features (10 tasks)
Task
What to do
Probes
Add liveness, readiness and startup probes and show how they change pod behaviour.
Persistent storage
Run a database with a PersistentVolumeClaim, delete the pod and show the data survives.
StatefulSets
Run a small StatefulSet and explain stable names and storage compared with Deployments.
Ingress
Install an Ingress controller and route two paths or hostnames to two Services.
Autoscaling
Install metrics-server and use a HorizontalPodAutoscaler to scale under a load test.
Jobs and CronJobs
Run a one-time Job and a CronJob that writes a timestamp, and check their logs.
Helm
Package your app as a Helm chart with values for dev and prod, and install, upgrade and roll back it.
RBAC
Create a ServiceAccount with a Role that can only read pods in one namespace and test it.
Network policies
Add a NetworkPolicy so only the API can reach the database, and test a blocked connection.
Monitoring
Install Prometheus and Grafana (kube-prometheus-stack) and build a dashboard of pod CPU, memory and restarts.
Level 3: Professional work and capstone (8 tasks)
Task
What to do
GitOps
Deploy your app with Argo CD or Flux from a Git repo, change the repo and watch the cluster update.
CI/CD to Kubernetes
Build a GitHub Actions pipeline that builds the image, pushes it to a registry and deploys to your cluster.
Troubleshooting drills
Fix 5 broken workloads you create on purpose (CrashLoopBackOff, ImagePullBackOff, pending pod, bad Service selector, failing probe) and write each fix.
Security basics
Run pods as non-root with a read-only filesystem, scan images with Trivy and explain Pod Security Standards.
Managed Kubernetes
Deploy your app to a free or trial managed cluster (GKE Autopilot, AKS or EKS), record the cost and delete it after.
Microservices app
Deploy a 3-service app (frontend, API, database) with Ingress, config, storage and autoscaling.
Certification prep
Make notes and 30 practice tasks for the CKAD or KCNA exam topics.
Capstone: production-style cluster
Run a complete app on Kubernetes with Helm, GitOps, monitoring, probes, autoscaling and security settings. Submit the repo, diagrams and a 2-minute video tour.
Internship