Kubernetes Resource Limits: Right-Sizing Containers for Stability
Your pod got OOMKilled. Or throttled to 5% CPU. Or evicted because the node ran out of resources. The fix isn’t “add more resources” — it’s understanding how Kubernetes scheduling actually works. Requests vs Limits Requests: What you’re guaranteed. Kubernetes uses this for scheduling. Limits: The ceiling. Exceed this and bad things happen. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 resources: requests: memory: "256Mi" cpu: "250m" # 0.25 cores limits: memory: "512Mi" cpu: "500m" # 0.5 cores What Happens When You Exceed Them Resource Exceed Request Exceed Limit CPU Throttled when node is busy Hard throttled always Memory Fine if available OOMKilled immediately CPU is compressible — you slow down but survive. Memory is not — you die. ...