Platform Foundations: The Paved Road on Kubernetes
What platform engineering is, then the cluster add-ons every service needs: Gateway API routing, automatic TLS with cert-manager, DNS with ExternalDNS, node autoscaling with Karpenter, and guardrails with Kyverno.
Before a portal or templates, a platform needs a solid base: a cluster where a team can ship a service and automatically get a hostname, a certificate, capacity, and guardrails, without filing a ticket. This stage builds that base in a `shoplite-platform` repo, managed by the Argo CD setup from the GitOps course.
+ ShopLite gains: a shoplite-platform repo with Gateway API, cert-manager, ExternalDNS, Karpenter, and Kyverno installed and configured via GitOps
- 0.1
What Platform Engineering Is (and Isn't)
A written platform charter for ShopLite, the repo skeleton, and a clear idea of what the internal developer platform will offer.
30 minFree1 break-its - 0.2
Traffic In: Gateway API, cert-manager, and ExternalDNS
Any team can expose a service at `<name>.shoplite.dev` with a valid certificate and a DNS record by committing one HTTPRoute, with no tickets.
60 min~$0.03/hr (EKS load balancer) + Route 53 hosted zone2 break-its - 0.3
Capacity on Demand: Karpenter and Cost-Aware Nodes
The cluster adds right-sized nodes (including Spot) within a minute when pods are pending, and consolidates them when load drops.
45 minPay only for nodes Karpenter launches2 break-its - 0.4
Guardrails as Code: Kyverno Policies
The cluster rejects unsafe workloads, fills in sensible defaults, and reports violations, so standards are enforced automatically instead of in review meetings.
50 minFree2 break-its