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GKE Upgrade Planner

Plans, runs and validates Google Kubernetes Engine cluster upgrades with checklists and runbooks

Source Download skill
Repository
google/skills
Stars
21,782
Licence
Apache-2.0
Files
5 files

What it does

Once installed, the agent produces GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) upgrade artifacts such as upgrade plans, pre- and post-upgrade checklists, maintenance runbooks with gcloud commands, release channel strategy advice, and troubleshooting guides. It tailors output to the user's cluster mode (Standard or Autopilot), current and target versions, release channel, and workload types, and it favors auto-upgrade with maintenance windows as the preferred control method.

Great for

  • Platform or SRE engineers planning a Kubernetes version bump or routine GKE patching
  • Teams that need a written runbook or checklist for a production GKE maintenance window
  • Engineers whose GKE upgrade is stuck or failing and who want troubleshooting steps

Skip it if

  • Creating new GKE clusters, onboarding applications, or configuring networking and security policy; the skill says to use gke-basics or other GKE skills for those tasks
  • Non-GKE Kubernetes platforms, since the guidance is specific to Google Kubernetes Engine
  • Running upgrades unattended on production without a human reviewing the commands first, because the skill can direct terminal gcloud commands that change live clusters

Try asking

  • “We need to upgrade our production GKE clusters from 1.29 to 1.30 next month. Write a runbook.”
  • “Plan our next GKE maintenance window for a Standard cluster with GPU and stateful node pools.”
  • “Our GKE node pool upgrade is stuck. Help me troubleshoot it.”
  • “Which GKE release channel should our dev, staging and prod clusters use?”
Step-by-step guide: how to use GKE Upgrade PlannerInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 5 original files, the Apache-2.0 licence and an attribution note.

    gke-upgrades.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

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

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip gke-upgrades.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 agent your cluster mode, current and target versions, release channel and workload types up front so the plan is specific rather than generic.
  • Review every gcloud command before the agent runs it, especially anything that changes a live production cluster.
  • Ask for a dry-run style plan and a rollback path first; the skill notes that control plane minor rollbacks usually need GKE Support.

What's inside

  • references/attribution.md
  • references/checklists.md
  • references/runbook-template.md
  • references/troubleshooting.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.