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About this guide

This is The Bookstore Guide — a hands-on Kubernetes learning resource that takes a reader from container fundamentals to running multi-region production platforms across 16 Parts and 115 chapters, anchored on one evolving microservices application called Bookstore. Concepts compound instead of resetting per topic: every chapter's hands-on section advances the same app.

Author

Maintained by abd-ulbasit. The guide is the result of an unusually disciplined build pipeline — every Part went through a spec → plan → implement → review cycle with separate reviewers for spec compliance and code quality (see ADR 0002 for the methodology). The repo and the live site are both MIT-licensed and open to contributions.

What this guide is

  • Zero-to-production, and deep. Assumes no prior Kubernetes knowledge. Internals are explained ("how it works under the hood"), not just "what to type." Containers are taught from first principles in Part 00.
  • One worked example throughout. Every primitive is introduced because the Bookstore needs it next, then applied to it immediately. The four example trees (bookstore/, bookstore-platform/, bookstore-platform/terraform/, terraform-account-baseline/) are versions of the same application at different points along the arc.
  • Locally reproducible, free. Parts 00–13 run entirely on local kind/k3d clusters with only open-source tooling. Parts 14–15 add a Terraform tree that was live-smoke-tested on AWS EKS for ~$0.20 — every cost-bearing variable defaults to off.

What this guide isn't

  • A certification cram sheet. (Cheat-sheet content lives in Appendix A; the guide as a whole is about durable mental models, not exam tricks.)
  • An opinion-free survey of every CNCF project. The guide opinionatedly picks one tool per concern and explains the trade-offs. The reader who wants a comparison shop should look elsewhere.
  • A static snapshot. CI enforces hard invariants on every push: manifest counts, Mermaid validity, Terraform shape, leak-scan, link-check. The guide rots if it isn't actively maintained — the gates are how I notice.

How to engage

Acknowledgements

Built on the shoulders of the Kubernetes / CNCF / HashiCorp / AWS / Mermaid / MkDocs Material communities, all of whom publish documentation that this guide cites heavily and depends on. The methodology side draws on Michael Nygard's Documenting Architecture Decisions (the ADR format used in docs/adr/).