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Add startup probe guidance to Kubernetes deployment docs
Pending reviewby Sarah KimJun 30, 2026
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New documentDeployment Guide — 20 lines
New documentTroubleshooting — 20 lines
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Deployment Guide
Startup Probes
If pods enter CrashLoopBackOff after deployment, the liveness probe may be failing before the application finishes starting.
Symptoms
•Pods cycle between Running and CrashLoopBackOff
•kubectl describe pod shows: "Liveness probe failed: HTTP probe failed with statuscode: 503"
•The app takes longer to start than the liveness probe's initialDelaySeconds
Solution
Add a startupProbe to your deployment spec:
startupProbe:
httpGet:
path: /healthz
port: 8080
failureThreshold: 30
periodSeconds: 10
This allows up to 5 minutes for startup (30 failures × 10s interval). Once the startup probe succeeds, Kubernetes switches to the regular liveness probe.
When to use startupProbe vs initialDelaySeconds
•startupProbe: Preferred for apps with variable startup times. Kubernetes will not run liveness/readiness checks until the startup probe succeeds.
•initialDelaySeconds: Use when startup time is predictable and consistent. Simpler but less flexible — if startup takes longer than expected, the pod will be killed.