Kubernetes certification notesdomain by domain, with typed-command drills

Method

1. 1

   Connect Claude Code and build the shelf

   Install the plugin with claude plugin marketplace add knowsh-curtis/know-cli and claude plugin install know-dev@know-sh, start claude, and run /mcp to sign in. Then ask it to read the current CKA curriculum on the CNCF’s GitHub and set up the library: a shelf called CKA with your exam date and the Kubernetes version the curriculum names, and a document per domain, titled as the curriculum titles them: Cluster architecture, installation and configuration, Workloads and scheduling, Services and networking, Storage, Troubleshooting.

   Ask for a sixth, Exam habits, for things that cut across domains: switching to the right context or host at the start of every task, kubectl explain when you forget a field, and generating YAML with --dry-run=client -o yaml instead of writing it from memory.

2. 2

   Let it file each lab session

   Keep notes in a Markdown file while you work through a lab, as you probably do now. At the end of the session, point Claude Code at the file and the domain: “Read labs/etcd.md and add a finding per exercise to my Cluster architecture document in know.sh, with the commands exactly as I ran them.” Six weeks of labs become a hundred findings without a line retyped.

   Tell it the shape once: title each finding as a task you might be asked to do, “Back up etcd with a snapshot”; the commands in a code block; what each flag does; how you checked it worked; What went wrong on the first attempt; the documentation page as a source link. Ask it not to tidy the commands; a wrong flag you corrected is worth keeping.

3. 3

   Fix the findings up in the editor

   Open the domain and press Edit. Check each filed command against your shell history, not against the assistant’s memory; a flag it “corrected” may be wrong for your cluster’s version. Choose one form for each command, -A or --all-namespaces, and write it that way everywhere, because the drills in the next step will hold you to it.

   Drag the findings into the order you would do the tasks, mark the ones that took you more than two attempts as Key, and change a finding’s type to Problem where the lab broke something you still do not understand. Every change the assistant made shows in Revisions, so you can see what it touched.

4. 4

   Drill the commands with typed-answer quizzes

   Ask your assistant for typed answers only: “Using know.sh, make a quiz of eight typed-answer questions from Cluster architecture, installation and configuration on my CKA shelf. Each answer is one command, written exactly as it appears in the finding.” It writes the quiz with know.sh’s quiz tools, and you take it in know.sh or the iOS app: you read the task and type the command.

   The match is exact, character for character. kubectl get pods --all-namespaces is marked wrong when the answer is kubectl get pods -A, even though both work, which is why the previous step matters. A wrong answer cites the finding, so you can see which character you missed.

5. 5

   Plan the labs as a campaign

   Claude Code can also plan. Ask it to make a campaign called CKA labs with an operation set per domain and an operation per lab, and to add dependencies: “Build a kubeadm cluster” blocks “Upgrade the cluster” and “Back up and restore etcd”. The graph view shows what is waiting on what.

   Mark each operation done as you finish it, and ask Claude Code to link the operation to the findings it filed from that lab. The plan is for you alone; there are no assignees, and campaigns need the planning permissions the Claude Code plugin asks for, which a chat connector does not get.

6. 6

   Use Look up while you practise, and Focus at the end

   During practice labs, keep know.sh open beside the terminal. ⌘K and “drain” finds the finding with the exact command faster than scrolling. In the last two weeks, stop doing that: practise with only the Kubernetes documentation open, because that is close to what you will have.

   A week before the exam, put Troubleshooting in Focus, and take whatever quizzes Revisit brings back. A quiz you scored under 60 per cent returns in three days; one you scored 80 or more waits three weeks, which may be after the exam, so ask your assistant for a fresh mixed quiz in the final days.