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GKE Node NotReady Troubleshooter

Diagnoses GKE nodes stuck in NotReady status and proposes safe, human-applied fixes

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

What it does

When a Google Kubernetes Engine node shows NotReady or Unknown status, this skill guides the AI agent through a structured investigation: checking node conditions and events, scanning kubelet and containerd logs, and reviewing node metrics. It maps the error patterns it finds to likely root causes such as runtime failures, memory or disk pressure, or networking problems. It then proposes remediation commands for a person to review and run; it is designed not to change the cluster itself.

Great for

  • Platform or SRE engineers troubleshooting GKE clusters where nodes go NotReady
  • Developers who see pods evicted or stuck Pending because of node health
  • Teams wanting a consistent, read-only first pass before making cluster changes

Skip it if

  • Pod-level application bugs, which the skill itself says belong to a different skill (gke-workload-troubleshooting), because it does not diagnose application code
  • Autoscaler scale-up or scale-down decisions, which the skill redirects to gke-cluster-autoscaler
  • Non-GKE compute such as other Kubernetes distributions or plain virtual machines, which the skill does not cover

Try asking

  • “My GKE node pool-1 node in cluster prod-east shows NotReady, help me find out why”
  • “Pods are being evicted from node gke-prod-abc123; walk me through the kubelet logs”
  • “Several nodes went Ready Unknown around 3pm yesterday, investigate the likely cause”
Step-by-step guide: how to use GKE Node NotReady TroubleshooterInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 2 original files, the Apache-2.0 licence and an attribution note.

    gke-node-notready.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

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

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip gke-node-notready.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 the project ID, cluster name, location, and node name up front so it does not have to guess defaults
  • Review every proposed kubectl or gcloud command before running it, since the skill intentionally leaves changes to a human
  • Note the approximate time the issue started so the agent can center its one-hour log window correctly

What's inside

  • references/attribution.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.