gke-golden-path

gke-golden-path is a configuration-reference skill that codifies Google's recommended "golden path" defaults for production Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot clusters. It solves the problem of scattered, hard-to-remember best practices by providing a single opinionated set of sensible cluster defaults, production-readiness checklists, and guidance on which decisions are effectively irreversible once a cluster is created.

The skill distinguishes "always-apply" defaults (such as private nodes, Workload Identity, Secret Manager rotation, Shielded VM secure boot, advanced datapath, vertical pod autoscaling, restricted Pod Security Standards, and a broad monitoring/logging component set) from customer-configurable settings (like DNS external traffic, max pods per node, machine and boot-disk types, and maintenance exclusion windows) that may be changed with justification. It emphasizes flagging Day-0 versus Day-1 choices, documenting rationale for deviations, and a tool preference order of MCP tools (get_cluster, create_cluster, update_cluster) over gcloud over kubectl. Guardrails explicitly forbid requesting or outputting secrets and encourage discovering project context through tooling rather than asking users to paste IDs.

It targets platform engineers, SREs, and DevOps practitioners designing new GKE clusters, auditing existing clusters against a known-good baseline, or verifying production readiness. Because it is a defaults-and-checklist reference (with an accompanying golden-path-autopilot.yaml asset) rather than an executor, it is most useful as advisory guidance during cluster design and configuration review.