Connect to your existing GKE cluster

The course never creates or deletes your cluster.

Retrieve credentials

gcloud container clusters get-credentials "$CLUSTER_NAME" \
  --location "$CLUSTER_LOCATION" \
  --project "$PROJECT_ID"

The --location flag works for regional and zonal clusters.

Verify context and identity

kubectl config current-context
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl auth can-i '*' '*' --all-namespaces
kubectl get nodes -o wide

The expected context normally contains the project, location, and cluster name. Stop if it names another cluster.

Create the lab namespace

kubectl create namespace "$APP_NAMESPACE" --dry-run=client -o yaml | kubectl apply -f -
kubectl get namespace "$APP_NAMESPACE"

Re-entry checklist

Run this at the beginning of every lab session:

gcloud config set project "$PROJECT_ID"
gcloud container clusters get-credentials "$CLUSTER_NAME" \
  --location "$CLUSTER_LOCATION" \
  --project "$PROJECT_ID"
kubectl config current-context
kubectl get namespace "$APP_NAMESPACE"

Context first

Never copy a mutating kubectl, helm, or flux command until the current context is visibly the intended learning cluster.