cka-study-planner

name	cka-study-planner
description	Generates a personalized CKA study plan based on the user's self-assessed confidence across the five exam domains, prioritizing weak areas with estimated hours and Kubernetes documentation links. Use when the user asks for a study plan, is unsure what to study, or wants exam prep guidance.

Skill: cka.study_planner.personalized

Description: Generates a personalized CKA study plan based on the user's self-assessed confidence across the five CKA exam domains, prioritizing weak areas with estimated hours and official documentation links.

Grounding

Required sources:

• references/cka-objectives.md (CKA v1.35 curriculum, five domains with weights)
• Kubernetes official documentation (for current documentation links)

Allowed reference domains:

• kubernetes.io/docs
• kubernetes.io/blog
• helm.sh/docs
• gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io

Workflow

1. Present domains with weights. Show the five CKA exam domains and their weight percentages:

   Domain	Exam Weight
   Cluster Architecture, Installation and Configuration	25%
   Workloads and Scheduling	15%
   Services and Networking	20%
   Storage	10%
   Troubleshooting	30%

2. Ask for confidence ratings. Ask the user to rate their confidence in each domain using one of these levels:

   • Strong -- comfortable with most objectives; needs only light review.
   • Moderate -- familiar with the concepts but needs targeted practice.
   • Weak -- limited experience; needs focused study.
   • Unknown -- not sure; treat as weak.

3. Generate a prioritized study plan. Based on the user's ratings:

   • Order domains from weakest to strongest.
   • Within equal confidence levels, prioritize domains with higher exam weight.
   • For each domain, provide:
     • Estimated study hours (see table below).
     • Two to three specific kubernetes.io/docs links for key topics.
     • Key objectives to focus on (from references/cka-objectives.md).
     • Recommended practice scenario types.
   • Include a total estimated hours range at the bottom.

4. Highlight February 2025 additions. Flag objectives that are new to the CKA curriculum (Gateway API, Helm/Kustomize, CRDs/operators, HPA/VPA, ephemeral containers, native sidecars, CNI/CSI/CRI). These topics represent approximately 50% of exam questions per recent candidate reports and deserve extra attention.

5. Offer to start practicing. After presenting the plan, ask: "Would you like to start with a practice scenario or a hands-on lab on [first recommended topic]?"

Study hour estimates

Confidence	Estimated Hours
Weak / Unknown	10-15 hours
Moderate	5-8 hours
Strong	2-3 hours

Scale proportionally by domain weight. Troubleshooting (30%) at Weak warrants 12-15 hours. Storage (10%) at Weak warrants 4-6 hours.

Domain	Exam Weight	Weak Hours	Moderate Hours	Strong Hours
Troubleshooting	30%	12-15	6-8	3-4
Cluster Architecture, Installation and Configuration	25%	10-12	5-7	2-3
Services and Networking	20%	8-10	4-6	2-3
Workloads and Scheduling	15%	6-8	3-5	1-2
Storage	10%	4-6	2-3	1-2

Output format

## Your Personalized CKA Study Plan

### Priority 1: [Domain Name] (exam weight: XX%)

**Your confidence:** [rating]
**Estimated study time:** X-X hours

**Focus objectives:**
- [Objective 1]
- [Objective 2]
- [Objective 3]

**New in February 2025:** [Flag any new curriculum additions in this domain]

**Recommended documentation:**
- [Topic title](kubernetes.io/docs URL)
- [Topic title](kubernetes.io/docs URL)

**Recommended practice:** [Scenario types to request from cka-scenario-creator]

---

### Priority 2: [Domain Name] (exam weight: XX%)

... (repeat for each domain)

---

**Total estimated study time:** XX-XX hours

### Exam day reminders

- You have 120 minutes for approximately 17 tasks. Budget about 7 minutes per task.
- Use the three-pass strategy: easy tasks first (2-4 min), medium tasks second (4-7 min), hard tasks last.
- Every task starts with a context-switch command. Forgetting to switch context is the most common silent error.
- The `k` alias for kubectl and bash autocompletion are pre-configured.
- Bookmark key documentation pages before the exam.

Ready to start? I can generate practice scenarios or a hands-on lab on **[first recommended topic]**.

Guardrails

• Do not skip any of the five domains. Even "strong" domains should appear in the plan with a light review recommendation.
• Do not invent documentation URLs. Provide real kubernetes.io/docs paths.
• Treat "unknown" confidence the same as "weak."
• Always use current Kubernetes terminology. See .github/copilot-instructions.md.
• No contractions.

Delivery rules

Deliver the full study plan in a single message after the user provides their confidence ratings. Do not split the plan across multiple messages.