The agent-based v1 ran inside claude-agent-service (replicas=1, no
nodeSelector) and self-evicted when it tried to drain its host (k8s-node4
on 2026-05-11). Cluster ended half-upgraded (master v1.34.7, workers
v1.34.2) until manual recovery.
Rewrite the pipeline as a chain of nodeSelector-pinned Jobs:
preflight (k8s-node1)
→ master (k8s-node1) drains k8s-master
→ worker × 4 (k8s-node1) drains k8s-node{4,3,2}
→ worker (k8s-master + control-plane toleration) drains k8s-node1
→ postflight (no pinning)
Each Job runs scripts/upgrade-step.sh (case-on-$PHASE) and ends by
envsubst-ing job-template.yaml into the next Job. Deterministic names
(k8s-upgrade-<phase>-<target_version>[-<node>]) make `kubectl apply`
idempotent — a failed Job can be re-created without duplicating
downstream.
Also lands `predrain_unstick`: deletes pods on the target node whose PDB
has 0 disruptionsAllowed. Without this, drain loops indefinitely on
single-replica deployments (e.g. every Anubis instance — discovered the
hard way during 2026-05-11 manual recovery of k8s-node3).
Adds K8sUpgradeStalled alert (in_flight + started_timestamp > 90 min).
Deprecates the agent prompt (renamed to *.deprecated.md with a header
pointer to the new code).
Apply order: k8s-version-upgrade first (consumes new SA + ConfigMaps),
then monitoring (loads the new alert). Both applied 2026-05-11.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Test 2 dry-run revealed kubeadm plan reports v1.34.7 as latest while
apt-cache madison (without prior apt-get update) was reporting v1.34.5
— so the CronJob would have dispatched the agent against a stale
target. Now do `sudo apt-get update -qq` for just the kubernetes repo
before querying madison.
Also add a DRY_RUN_OVERRIDE env precedence so future test invocations
can override DRY_RUN without an apply cycle — but Job spec env is
immutable post-create, so this is only useful for CronJob spec edits
(suspend, then add env, then resume). Documented in the runbook.
Stage 2 now reuses the existing default/backup-etcd CronJob (NFS-backed
PV pointing at 192.168.1.127:/srv/nfs/etcd-backup) instead of trying to
ssh into master and run etcdctl against a non-existent /mnt/main mount.
The agent triggers a one-shot Job from cronjob/backup-etcd, waits up to
10 min, then parses the backup-manage container log for "Backup done"
line + byte count.
Test 2 (dry-run) surfaced 5 real cluster blockers — agent loop works
end-to-end at the planning level.
Expanded the claude-agent ServiceAccount's privileges via a sibling
ClusterRole (claude-agent-upgrade-ops):
- patch namespaces/k8s-upgrade (in-flight annotation)
- create batch/jobs (trigger etcd snapshot Job)
- patch nodes (cordon/uncordon)
- create pods/eviction (drain)
- delete pods (drain fallback)
Adds a weekly detection CronJob (Sun 12:00 UTC) that probes apt-cache madison
on master for new patches + HEAD pkgs.k8s.io for next-minor availability,
then POSTs to claude-agent-service to dispatch the k8s-version-upgrade agent.
The agent (.claude/agents/k8s-version-upgrade.md) orchestrates:
pre-flight (5 nodes Ready + halt-on-alert + 24h-quiet + plan target match)
-> etcd snapshot save
-> optional master containerd skew fix
-> apt repo URL rewrite (minor bumps only)
-> drain/upgrade/uncordon master via ssh < update_k8s.sh
-> sequential workers k8s-node4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 with 10-min soak each
-> post-flight verification
Two new Upgrade Gates alerts catch failure modes:
- K8sVersionSkew (kubelet/apiserver gitVersion mismatch >30m)
- EtcdPreUpgradeSnapshotMissing (in_flight without snapshot_taken >10m)
update_k8s.sh refactored to take --role / --release args; the agent shells
it into each node via SSH pipe. update_node.sh annotated as OS-major path.
Operator-facing docs: docs/runbooks/k8s-version-upgrade.md and a new section
in docs/architecture/automated-upgrades.md.
Secrets: secret/k8s-upgrade/{ssh_key,ssh_key_pub,slack_webhook} (ed25519
keypair distributed to all 5 nodes via authorized_keys; slack_webhook
reuses kured webhook URL on initial deploy).
