Kubernetes Operator Quality Checklist

Use this checklist to evaluate operator quality before considering it production-ready or before each iteration.

Safety (dev-only)

• Target cluster is kind or an explicitly allowed dev cluster
• Leader election disabled for dev overlay
• Single replica manager in dev
• Webhook timeouts are short for dev (e.g., 10s)
• Webhook only mutates resources it owns or is explicitly allowed to modify
• No destructive operations without explicit user confirmation

CRD Quality

• Structural schema is valid and complete
• Required fields are properly marked
• Default values are defined for optional fields where sensible
• Status subresource is enabled when status is used
• Printer columns defined for useful kubectl get output
• CRD categories are set for discoverability
• Validation markers enforce all invariants from requirements

Webhook Quality

• Validating webhook covers all invariants
• Mutating webhook only defaults safe, optional fields
• Immutable fields are enforced on update
• Cross-field validation is implemented
• Clear error messages are returned on rejection
• Failure policy is appropriate for the environment
• Certificates exist and are correctly mounted
• Webhook service endpoints resolve

RBAC Quality

• Minimal verbs: only what the controller actually needs
• Minimal resources: no wildcards unless justified
• No unnecessary cluster-wide permissions
• Separate roles for manager and webhook if they have different needs
• ServiceAccount is dedicated (not default)

Controller Quality

• Reconcile loop is idempotent
• Owner references set on all created resources
• Finalizers used for cleanup of external resources
• Status conditions follow standard types (Ready, Progressing, Degraded)
• Events recorded for significant state changes
• Requeue with backoff for transient errors
• No long-running operations in reconcile (use async patterns)

Fast Loop Quality

• make dev / tilt up starts without errors
• Local compile succeeds
• Binary sync into running pod works reliably
• Process restart is reliable after sync
• Logs show new version after code edit
• CRD changes are applied through Kustomize automatically
• Webhook changes take effect without manual restart

Test Quality

• Unit tests for core reconcile logic (table-driven)
• Envtest or integration tests for webhook validation
• Example CR manifests for manual testing (valid and invalid)
• Tests cover error paths and edge cases

Troubleshooting Guide

When things go wrong:

1. Tilt sync errors: Check Tilt UI or logs for build/sync failures
2. Pod crash loops: kubectl logs -n <ns> <pod> --previous
3. Webhook failures: Check webhook service endpoints and certificate secrets
4. CRD not applied: kubectl get crd <name> -o yaml and check for schema errors
5. RBAC errors: kubectl auth can-i --as system:serviceaccount:<ns>:<sa> <verb> <resource>
6. Reconcile not triggering: Check controller logs for watch errors, verify RBAC