gke-cluster-creation

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Plans and executes GKE cluster creation, provisioning, and production readiness audits. Use when creating GKE clusters, provisioning GKE environments, or auditing GKE clusters. Don't use for application onboarding or deployment configuration (use gke-app-onboarding instead).

6installs

Sourcegoogle/skills

Added on2026-07-04

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add google/skills gke-cluster-creation

SKILL.md Content

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GKE Cluster Creation

This reference guides creating GKE clusters. The golden path Autopilot configuration is the default for all new clusters.

MCP Tools:

list_clusters

,

create_cluster

,

get_cluster

,

list_operations

,

get_operation

Workflow

Discover context: Use
```
list_clusters
```
to see existing clusters. Use
```
gcloud config get-value project
```
if project unknown.
Gather inputs: project_id, region, cluster_name, environment type
Select mode: Autopilot (default) vs Standard
Configure networking: auto-create subnet (default) or bring-your-own
Review golden path settings: present the config and confirm with user
Create: Use MCP
```
create_cluster
```
tool. Fall back to
```
gcloud
```
CLI only if MCP is unavailable.
Track: Use
```
get_operation
```
to monitor creation progress
Verify: Use
```
get_cluster
```
with
```
readMask="*"
```
to confirm golden path settings applied

Mode Selection

Criteria	Autopilot (Golden Path)	Standard
Node management	Google-managed	Self-managed
Pricing	Pay per pod resource	Pay per node (VM)
: : request : :
Node customization	Via ComputeClasses	Full control
DaemonSets	Allowed (with	Full control
: : restrictions) : :
GPU/TPU	Supported via	Supported via node pools
: : ComputeClasses : :
Best for	Most production workloads	Kernel tuning, custom OS,
: : : privileged workloads :

Rule: Default to Autopilot unless the customer has a specific requirement that Autopilot cannot satisfy.

Templates

1. Golden Path Autopilot (Production)

This is the default. All settings match

../gke-golden-path/assets/golden-path-autopilot.yaml

.

Via gcloud:

bash

gcloud container clusters create-auto <CLUSTER_NAME> \
  --region <REGION> \
  --project <PROJECT_ID> \
  --release-channel regular \
  --enable-private-nodes \
  --enable-master-authorized-networks \
  --enable-dns-access \
  --enable-secret-manager \
  --secret-manager-rotation-interval=120s \
  --scoped-rbs-bindings \
  --monitoring=SYSTEM,API_SERVER,SCHEDULER,CONTROLLER_MANAGER,STORAGE,POD,DEPLOYMENT,STATEFULSET,DAEMONSET,HPA,CADVISOR,KUBELET,DCGM \
  --quiet

Via MCP (
create_cluster
):

json

{
  "parent": "projects/<PROJECT_ID>/locations/<REGION>",
  "cluster": {
    "name": "<CLUSTER_NAME>",
    "autopilot": { "enabled": true },
    "privateClusterConfig": { "enablePrivateNodes": true },
    "masterAuthorizedNetworksConfig": {
      "privateEndpointEnforcementEnabled": true
    },
    "releaseChannel": { "channel": "REGULAR" },
    "secretManagerConfig": {
      "enabled": true,
      "rotationConfig": { "enabled": true, "rotationInterval": "120s" }
    },
    "rbacBindingConfig": {
      "enableInsecureBindingSystemAuthenticated": false,
      "enableInsecureBindingSystemUnauthenticated": false
    }
  }
}

2. Autopilot Dev/Test

Relaxes some golden path defaults for cost savings and easier access in non-production.

bash

gcloud container clusters create-auto <CLUSTER_NAME> \
  --region <REGION> \
  --project <PROJECT_ID> \
  --release-channel rapid \
  --quiet

Warning: This does not apply golden path security hardening. Suitable for dev/test only.

3. Standard Regional (When Autopilot is Not an Option)

bash

gcloud container clusters create <CLUSTER_NAME> \
  --region <REGION> \
  --project <PROJECT_ID> \
  --num-nodes 3 \
  --machine-type e2-standard-4 \
  --disk-type pd-balanced \
  --enable-autoscaling --min-nodes 1 --max-nodes 10 \
  --enable-shielded-nodes --enable-secure-boot \
  --workload-pool=<PROJECT_ID>.svc.id.goog \
  --enable-private-nodes \
  --enable-master-authorized-networks \
  --enable-vertical-pod-autoscaling \
  --enable-dataplane-v2 \
  --release-channel regular \
  --quiet

4. GPU/AI Workloads (Autopilot with ComputeClass)

Create a golden path Autopilot cluster, then apply a ComputeClass for GPU workloads:

bash

# 1. Create golden path cluster (same as template 1)
gcloud container clusters create-auto <CLUSTER_NAME> \
  --region <REGION> --project <PROJECT_ID> \
  --enable-private-nodes --enable-master-authorized-networks \
  --enable-dns-access --enable-secret-manager --scoped-rbs-bindings \
  --quiet

# 2. Apply GPU ComputeClass (see gke-compute-classes.md)
kubectl apply -f gpu-compute-class.yaml

# 3. Or use GIQ for inference (see gke-inference.md)
gcloud container ai profiles manifests create \
  --model=gemma-2-9b-it --model-server=vllm --accelerator-type=nvidia-l4 --quiet > inference.yaml
kubectl apply -f inference.yaml

Instructions

ALWAYS ask for
```
project_id
```
if not in context
ALWAYS ask for
```
region
```
ALWAYS ask for a unique
```
cluster_name
```
DEFAULT to golden path Autopilot unless customer specifies otherwise
WARN about Day-0 decisions (networking, private nodes) that are hard to change later
WARN about cost for GPU or multi-region clusters
When using MCP
```
create_cluster
```
, the
```
cluster.name
```
should be the short name (e.g.,
```
my-cluster
```
), not the full resource path

gke-cluster-creation

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

GKE Cluster Creation

Workflow

Mode Selection

Templates

1. Golden Path Autopilot (Production)

2. Autopilot Dev/Test

3. Standard Regional (When Autopilot is Not an Option)

4. GPU/AI Workloads (Autopilot with ComputeClass)

Instructions