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🐳 🐳 30-Day Docker + Kubernetes Roadmap

4 min read · Notion

🐳 From zero to production-grade container orchestration. Docker internals, Kubernetes architecture, Helm, Istio, ArgoCD, Prometheus, Grafana, and the full cloud-native toolchain. Aligned with your Go backend stack.

📌 What this roadmap covers

This is not a “run docker run hello-world” tutorial. Every day you build real systems, break them intentionally, fix them, and understand WHY the design decisions were made. By Day 30 you will be able to design, deploy, and operate production container infrastructure at scale.

🗺️ 30-Day Plan at a glance

Week	Days	Focus	Key Output
Week 1 — Docker Mastery	1–7	Images, containers, networking, volumes, Compose, security	Production-grade Go app containerised
Week 2 — Kubernetes Core	8–14	Pods, Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Ingress, RBAC	Go app running in k8s with all primitives
Week 3 — Advanced Kubernetes	15–21	Helm, StatefulSets, HPA, PVC, Operators, CRDs, Network Policies	Helm chart + autoscaling + stateful workloads
Week 4 — Production Toolchain	22–30	ArgoCD, Istio, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Trivy, Falco, Tekton	Full production observability + GitOps + security

🛠️ Full tool stack this roadmap covers

Category	Tools
Container runtime	Docker Engine, containerd, OCI spec
Local k8s	minikube, kind, k3d
Package manager	Helm 3
GitOps	ArgoCD, Flux
Service mesh	Istio, Linkerd
Observability	Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Tempo, OpenTelemetry
Security	Trivy, Falco, OPA/Gatekeeper, kube-bench
CI/CD	Tekton, GitHub Actions + k8s
Networking	Calico, Cilium, CoreDNS
Storage	Longhorn, CSI drivers
CLI tools	kubectl, kubectx, kubens, k9s, stern, kustomize

⚡ Quick start: local Kubernetes

# Option 1: kind (Kubernetes IN Docker) — recommended for this roadmap
brew install kind
kind create cluster --name dev --config kind-config.yaml
 
# Option 2: minikube
brew install minikube
minikube start --driver=docker --cpus=4 --memory=8g
 
# Option 3: k3d (k3s in Docker, fastest)
brew install k3d
k3d cluster create dev --agents 2
 
# Essential CLI tools
brew install kubectl kubectx stern k9s kustomize helm

# kind-config.yaml — 3-node cluster for realistic testing
kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
nodes:
  - role: control-plane
    kubeAdmConfigPatches:
      - |
        kind: InitConfiguration
        nodeRegistration:
          kubeletExtraArgs:
            node-labels: "ingress-ready=true"
    extraPortMappings:
      - containerPort: 80
        hostPort: 80
      - containerPort: 443
        hostPort: 443
  - role: worker
  - role: worker

📊 My progress

Current day: Day 1 of 30
Docker images built: 0
k8s deployments shipped: 0
Helm charts written: 0
Production tools configured: 0

🔖 Phase pages

🐳 Week 1 — Docker Mastery (Days 1–7)
⎈️ Week 2 — Kubernetes Core (Days 8–14)
📦 Week 3 — Advanced Kubernetes (Days 15–21)
🚀 Week 4 — Production Toolchain (Days 22–30)

📘 Essential kubectl commands reference

# Context management
kubectl config get-contexts
kubectl config use-context dev
kubectx dev                          # shortcut with kubectx
kubens kube-system                   # switch namespace
 
# Get resources
kubectl get pods -n default -o wide
kubectl get all --all-namespaces
kubectl get events --sort-by=.lastTimestamp
 
# Inspect
kubectl describe pod <name>
kubectl logs <pod> -f --tail=100
kubectl exec -it <pod> -- /bin/sh
kubectl port-forward svc/<name> 8080:80
 
# Apply / delete
kubectl apply -f manifest.yaml
kubectl delete -f manifest.yaml
kubectl diff -f manifest.yaml        # preview changes
 
# Debug
kubectl run debug --image=busybox --rm -it -- sh
kubectl top pods
kubectl top nodes
 
# k9s — terminal UI for kubernetes (use this daily)
k9s

📅 Docker + K8s Daily Tracker