CKAD

166 lessons
34 courses_modules
Level intermediate

The path for developers who build and ship applications on Kubernetes. Built on top of the Common Core, this learning path takes you from running basic workloads to designing resilient, secure, and observable applications , everything the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer exam expects you to know.

What you’ll learn

  • Workloads & configuration: Commands and args, multi-container Pods (sidecar, init), Jobs and CronJobs, ConfigMaps, Secrets, resource requests and limits, liveness and readiness probes, and security contexts
  • Deployment patterns: ReplicaSets, Deployments, advanced deployment strategies (blue/green, canary)
  • Services & networking: Service types, DNS-based discovery, Ingress routing rules, and NetworkPolicies for traffic control
  • Storage: Volumes, PersistentVolumeClaims, and StatefulSets for stateful applications
  • Security & auth: Service accounts, authentication basics, kubeconfig, RBAC, and admission controllers
  • Observability & extensibility: Application logging, the Kubernetes API and versioning, custom resources, and Helm for package management

Who is this for?

Backend developers, full-stack engineers, and DevOps practitioners who deploy and manage their own applications on Kubernetes. If your job involves writing Deployments, debugging failing Pods, and wiring up Services and Ingress, this is your path.

Prerequisites: Complete the Common Core path first , this path builds directly on those foundations.

Start Course

Course content

Fundamentals

Onboarding 3 lessons
Welcome What Runs Here Overview of Kubernetes Certifications
Kubernetes Basics & API 7 lessons
What Is Kubernetes Cluster Architecture Overview Control Plane Components Node Components API Groups API Versions API Deprecation Policy
Yaml And Objects 3 lessons
The Kubernetes Object Model Anatomy of a Manifest Object Names, UIDs, and DNS Rules
Kubectl Essentials 7 lessons
Imperative vs Declarative Viewing Resources Inspecting Running Containers Creating and Editing Resources Delete and Cleanup Formatting Output and Tips Field Selectors
Pods 9 lessons
What Is a Pod Pod Structure Creating Your First Pod Pod Lifecycle and Phases Container Restart Policies Editing Pods Docker ENTRYPOINT and CMD command and args in Kubernetes Practical Override Scenarios
Namespaces 4 lessons
What Are Namespaces The Default Namespaces Working Across Namespaces When to Use Multiple Namespaces
Labels And Annotations 4 lessons
What Are Labels Label Selectors Annotations Recommended Labels

Workloads & configuration

Commands And Args 3 lessons
Docker ENTRYPOINT and CMD command and args in Kubernetes Practical Override Scenarios
Multi Container Pods 5 lessons
Why Multiple Containers in a Pod The Sidecar Pattern Ambassador and Adapter Patterns Init Containers Native Sidecar Containers
Jobs 4 lessons
What Is a Job Job Parallelism and Completions Job Failure, Backoff, and Retry CronJobs
Configmaps 5 lessons
What Is a ConfigMap Creating ConfigMaps Using ConfigMaps via Environment Variables Using ConfigMaps via Volume Mounts Immutable ConfigMaps
Secrets 5 lessons
What Is a Secret Secret Types Creating and Using Secrets in Pods Encrypting Secrets at Rest Secrets Security Best Practices
Resource Management 5 lessons
Resource Requests and Limits How Scheduling Uses Requests What Happens When Limits Are Exceeded QoS Classes LimitRanges and ResourceQuotas
Probes 5 lessons
Why Probes Matter Liveness Probes Readiness Probes Startup Probes Probe Types and Configuration
Security Contexts 4 lessons
Container Security: Linux Primitives Pod vs Container Security Context Running Containers as Non-Root Capabilities and Read-Only Root Filesystem
Replicasets 4 lessons
Why ReplicaSets Creating a ReplicaSet Scaling and Self-Healing Limitations of ReplicaSets
ReplicaSets & Deployments 9 lessons
Why ReplicaSets Creating a ReplicaSet Scaling and Self-Healing Limitations of ReplicaSets What Is a Deployment Creating a Deployment Rolling Updates Rollback and Revision History Update Strategies
Deployment Strategies 4 lessons Coming Soon
blue-green-deployments canary-deployments pause-and-resume-rollouts choosing-a-deployment-strategy

Services & networking

Services 6 lessons
Why Services Services and Endpoints ClusterIP NodePort LoadBalancer Named Ports
Dns 4 lessons
DNS in Kubernetes Service DNS Records Pod DNS Records DNS Debugging
Gateway API and Envoy Gateway 5 lessons
What Is Kubernetes Gateway API? The Controller Behind the Gateway Routing Traffic with Gateway and HTTPRoute Securing Traffic with TLS Termination Portable Traffic Manipulation with HTTPRoute Filters
Network Policies 5 lessons
What Are Network Policies? NetworkPolicy Structure Ingress Rules Egress Rules Advanced NetworkPolicy Patterns

Storage

Volumes 3 lessons
Why Volumes? emptyDir hostPath
Volumes & Persistent Storage 8 lessons
Why Volumes? emptyDir hostPath PersistentVolumes and PersistentVolumeClaims Creating a PersistentVolume Creating a PersistentVolumeClaim Using PVCs in Pods Access Modes and Reclaim Policies
Statefulsets 5 lessons
Stateful vs Stateless StatefulSet Fundamentals Headless Services Storage in StatefulSets StatefulSet Ordering and Updates

Security & auth

Service Accounts 4 lessons
What Is a ServiceAccount Creating and Assigning ServiceAccounts Token Projection and Automount ServiceAccount Practical Scenarios
Authentication & Service Accounts 7 lessons
Kubernetes Security Fundamentals How Kubernetes Authenticates Identities Users vs ServiceAccounts What Is a ServiceAccount Creating and Assigning ServiceAccounts Token Projection and Automount ServiceAccount Practical Scenarios
Kubeconfig 4 lessons
What Is a Kubeconfig File Clusters, Users, and Contexts Switching Contexts Creating a Kubeconfig from Scratch
Rbac 5 lessons
Authorization in Kubernetes Roles and RoleBindings ClusterRoles and ClusterRoleBindings Testing Permissions with kubectl auth can-i RBAC Best Practices
Admission Controllers 4 lessons
What Are Admission Controllers Enabling and Disabling Admission Controllers Validating Admission Webhooks Mutating Admission Webhooks

Observability & extensibility

Logging And Monitoring 4 lessons
Container Logging Basics Monitoring with Metrics Server Kubernetes Events Monitoring Cluster Component Logs
Api And Versioning 3 lessons Coming Soon
api-groups api-versions api-deprecation-policy
Custom Resources 4 lessons Coming Soon
what-are-custom-resources creating-a-crd custom-controllers operator-pattern
Helm 5 lessons Coming Soon
what-is-helm installing-helm working-with-charts values-and-configuration finding-and-using-charts