kubelet

The single most common Kubernetes interview question, and the one where a vague answer is most obvious. Every stage you name is a place the interviewer can ask you to debug.

Three propagation mechanisms live inside this one question and only one of them is automatic. Most candidates promise instant reloads; the kubelet has never promised that to anyone.

The kubelet is a local reconcile loop with its own event stream, probe workers and eviction brain. Staff-level candidates can narrate it and explain why Ready status can reflect either reported health failure or missing heartbeats.

Every control plane component depends on the API server, so who starts the API server? The bootstrap paradox sits at the heart of every cluster, and the kubelet plus a directory of files is the accepted way out.

Two cleanup mechanisms hide behind one taint: image garbage collection removes unreferenced images by LRU at threshold crossings, while eviction kills pods. Candidates who conflate them fail this question quietly.