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GKE Cluster Autoscaler Guide

Guides setup, tuning, and troubleshooting of Google Kubernetes Engine node autoscaling

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Repository
google/skills
Stars
21,782
Licence
Apache-2.0
Files
10 files

What it does

Once installed, the agent becomes a guide for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) node autoscaling, the feature that adds or removes server machines in a cluster as workload changes. It helps enable and tune the autoscaler, diagnoses why nodes fail to scale up or down (such as capacity shortages or quota limits), and can run bundled scripts that list scale-down blockers or tail autoscaler event logs. It defers ComputeClass YAML generation to a separate skill.

Great for

  • Platform or DevOps engineers running GKE clusters that do not scale as expected
  • Teams planning Spot or On-Demand capacity strategies across zones
  • Engineers debugging pods stuck Pending or nodes that never shut down

Skip it if

  • Clusters not on Google Kubernetes Engine, since the commands and log IDs are GKE-specific
  • Generating ComputeClass YAML or priority configs, which the skill tells the agent to hand off to the gke-compute-classes skill
  • Running scripts against production clusters without reviewing them first, since they execute kubectl and gcloud against live resources

Try asking

  • “Why are my GKE nodes not scaling down even though utilization is low?”
  • “Set up Cluster Autoscaler with Node Auto Provisioning on my GKE cluster”
  • “My scale-up is failing with scale.up.error.out.of.resources in one zone; what should I change?”
  • “Tail the autoscaler visibility logs for my cluster and show only errors”
Step-by-step guide: how to use GKE Cluster Autoscaler GuideInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 10 original files, the Apache-2.0 licence and an attribution note.

    gke-cluster-autoscaler.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip gke-cluster-autoscaler.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip gke-cluster-autoscaler.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Give the exact cluster and node pool names; the skill refuses names containing shell-special characters.
  • Review find-scale-down-blockers.sh and log-autoscaler-events.sh before running them, and scope scans with -n to one namespace.
  • Wait at least 30 minutes after creating a new reservation before expecting scale-up against it, as the skill advises.

What's inside

  • assets/capacity-buffer-serving.yaml
  • assets/find-scale-down-blockers.sh
  • assets/log-autoscaler-events.sh
  • references/attribution.md
  • references/ca-capacity-buffers.md
  • references/ca-consolidation-tuning.md
  • references/ca-debug.md
  • references/ca-optimization.md
  • references/ca-provisioning.md
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from google/skills under the Apache-2.0 licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.