Working with Google Cloud and Kubernetes YAML

Google Cloud Code is designed to make Kubernetes and Cloud Build configuration easier by linting schema for both structure and valid values and providing descriptive errors. Cloud Code comes with out-of-the-box solutions for common schema, smart completions, and documentation on hover.

Supported YAML configuration files

Cloud Code also supports popular Kubernetes custom resource definitions (CRDs), like Kubeflow, out-of-the-box.

Using custom schema

With Cloud Code, you can provide your own CRD schema with the cloudcode.yaml.crdSchemaLocations setting in your settings.json file. You can point to either a local file or a URL. URLs pointing to github.com are automatically converted to raw.githubusercontent.com.

Pulling schema from a cluster

When you switch to a cluster running Kubernetes v1.16 and above in the Kubernetes Explorer, Cloud Code automatically pulls the schema of all installed CRDs.

Configuring with snippets

Out-of-the-box snippets for common YAML schema (using Command/Ctrl+Space to view options) make it easy to start a new YAML file or add to an existing one without errors, while still following best practices. Cloud Code makes it easier to work with repetitive fields; fill in one and Cloud Code fills out the remaining instances.

Cloud Code offers the following snippets:

  • Anthos Config Management - Cluster
  • Anthos Config Management - Cluster Selector
  • Anthos Config Management - Config Management
  • Anthos Config Management - Namespace Selector
  • Cloud Build - Cloud Run deployment
  • Cloud Build - Docker container build
  • Cloud Build - GKE deployment
  • Cloud Build - GKE Skaffold deployment
  • Cloud Build - Go build
  • Cloud Build - Terraform plan + apply
  • Config Connector - BigQueryDataset
  • Config Connector - BigQueryTable
  • Config Connector - BigtableCluster
  • Config Connector - BigtableInstance
  • Config Connector - PubSubSubscription
  • Config Connector - PubSubTopic
  • Config Connector - RedisInstance
  • Config Connector - SpannerInstance
  • Kubernetes - ConfigMap
  • Kubernetes - Deployment
  • Kubernetes - Ingress
  • Kubernetes - Pod
  • Kubernetes - Secret
  • Kubernetes - Service
  • Migrate for Anthos - Export
  • Migrate for Anthos - PersistentVolumeClaim
  • Migrate for Anthos - StatefulSet
  • Skaffold - Bazel
  • Skaffold - Getting-started
  • Skaffold - Helm deployment
  • Skaffold - Kaniko

Enabling Skaffold file sync and hot reloading

To improve the efficiency of your local development workflow and avoid having to rebuild, redeploy, and restart your pods, Skaffold supports copying changed files to a deployed container. This means that when you're making changes to static and source code files, you can see your changes take effect in a matter of seconds, making for an accelerated feedback loop.

For static files (like HTML and CSS files), this file copying behavior is called file syncing.

For source code files, this behavior is called as hot reloading and supports the following file types:

  • Go: *.go
  • Java: *.java, *.kt, *.scala, *.groovy, *.clj
  • NodeJS: *.js, *.mjs, *.coffee, *.litcoffee, *.json

With hot reloading configured, Skaffold detects changes to supported files and syncs these changes to the running container on your cluster. Changes to file types that don't support hot reloading trigger an image rebuild and pod restart.

Automatic file-syncing and hot reloading are enabled by default when you're working with Buildpacks as your preferred builder. For other builders like Docker, you can specify a sync section in your skaffold.yaml for the artifact you're customizing.

Your sync setting can be one of (in order of preference):

  • auto (only for Jib and Buildpacks artifacts. This is the default if not specified for Buildpacks)
  • infer
  • manual

The following sample sync section in a skaffold.yaml file specifies a manual sync to synchronize all /static-html HTML files to the static folder in a container:

build:
  artifacts:
    - image: gcr.io/k8s-skaffold/node-example
      context: node
      sync:
        manual:
          - src: 'static-html/*.html'
            dest: static

For a detailed look at file syncing and specifying sync rules, see the Skaffold guide on file sync.

Completing with context

Based on the current schema, Cloud Code provides contextual completions and relevant docs to help you choose the right option.

Context completions for Kubernetes schema

Validating YAML schema

Cloud Code offers schema validation support by flagging invalid tags and values in your YAML files and suggesting fixes when possible.

Value of name field red-underlined to highlight an invalid value of '1234'; hover text states: "Incorrect type. Expected string."

Discovering documentation on hover

Cloud Code surfaces relevant documentation when you hover over a value in the schema.

Documentation info on hover in schema

Accessing resource definitions

Quickly view definitions for resources by right-clicking and choosing Go to Definition or Peek Definition.

Definition info on right-click in schema

Applying a YAML file

To apply a configuration change using the current file, you can run Cloud Code: Apply the current JSON/YAML file with Kubernetes deployed resource from the Command Palette (accessible with Cmd/Ctrl+ Shift+P).

This command brings up a diff view for you to review changes. Click Apply when prompted whether you'd like to apply this change. This runs kubectl apply -f.

Diffing between YAML files

If you'd like to view the differences between a YAML file in source control and a deployed YAML file, you can use Cloud Code: Diff the current JSON/YAML file with Kubernetes deployed resource from the Command Palette (accessible with Cmd/Ctrl+ Shift+P). This brings up a diff view for you to compare and contrast two schema files.

Diff view for Kubernetes schema

Performing a dry-run of a YAML file

To perform a dry run of your configuration and check its validity, you can use Cloud Code: Dry-run current config for server-side validation and Cloud Code: Dry-run current config for client-side validation from the Command Palette (accessible with Cmd/Ctrl+ Shift+P).

Dry-run commands listed from the command palette and Dry-run current config for server-side validation selected

This runs kubectl apply -f dry-run=server (or kubectl apply -f dry-run=client, for the Client option) and displays successful validation (or an error message, if your config file isn't valid) as a toast notification.

In the following example, server-side dry-run validation of the configuration file, hello.deployment.yaml, returns an error when trying to create a deployment because the specified namespace, random-namespace, doesn't exist.

Server-side dry-run validation fails on `hello.deployment.yaml` with an error message displayed as a toast. The details of the error are found in the Output channel; the namespace 'random-namespace' doesn't exist

Working with secrets

Using configuration maps and secrets is a key part of working with Kubernetes. To view the context of a base64 secret with Cloud Code, hover over the secret to decode it.

Decode secret on hover with Cloud Code