castai-prod-checklist

name	castai-prod-checklist
description	Production readiness checklist for CAST AI cluster onboarding. Use when going live with CAST AI autoscaling, validating Phase 2 setup, or preparing for production cost optimization. Trigger with phrases like "cast ai production", "cast ai go-live", "cast ai checklist", "cast ai launch".
allowed-tools	Read, Bash(kubectl:*), Bash(curl:*), Bash(helm:*), Grep
version	1.0.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","kubernetes","cost-optimization","castai"]
compatible-with	claude-code

CAST AI Production Checklist

Overview

Complete checklist for enabling CAST AI cost optimization on a production Kubernetes cluster. Covers Phase 1 (monitoring) through Phase 2 (full automation) with validation steps at each stage.

Prerequisites

• CAST AI tested on a staging cluster first
• Production API key (Full Access)
• Change management approval for node lifecycle changes

Phase 1: Monitoring Only

• Agent installed with read-only key
• Agent pod healthy: kubectl get pods -n castai-agent
• Console shows cluster as "Connected"
• Savings report generating (wait 24h for full data)
• Review savings estimate before enabling automation

Phase 2: Autoscaling Enabled

• Full Access API key provisioned and stored in secrets manager
• Cluster controller installed
• Evictor installed with conservative settings (non-aggressive)
• Spot handler installed for graceful interruption handling
• Autoscaler policies configured with appropriate limits:
  • clusterLimits.cpu.maxCores set to safe ceiling
  • unschedulablePods.headroom configured (10-15%)
  • nodeDownscaler.emptyNodes.delaySeconds >= 300 for production
  • spotInstances.spotDiversityEnabled = true
• Node templates created for workload-specific needs (GPU, high-memory)
• PodDisruptionBudgets set on all critical workloads

Workload Autoscaler

• Workload autoscaler installed