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Linux Foundation

Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)

The CKAD is a hands-on, performance-based certification that validates a candidate's ability to design, build, and deploy cloud-native applications for Kubernetes.

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Study your way: beyond Practice and Mock exam, choose adaptive, hard mode, ready review, objective coverage, or retry-your-misses — and set your own question count, timer, and pass mark.

About this exam

CKAD is a performance-based exam certifying that candidates can design, build, configure, and expose cloud-native applications on Kubernetes using core primitives and tooling.

Who should take this exam

Application developers and engineers who build and run containerized applications on Kubernetes and want to demonstrate practical, hands-on proficiency.

Career benefits

CKAD demonstrates real-world Kubernetes application development skills sought for cloud-native developer, platform engineer, and DevOps roles.

How to prepare

Study the official CNCF curriculum, practice extensively with kubectl in a live cluster, and master manifests for deployments, configuration, observability, and services under time pressure.

Quick facts

Exam costUSD 445
Valid for3 years
Length120 minutes
Passing score66%
FormatOnline proctored, hands-on performance-based exam performed against live Kubernetes clusters via a command-line terminal.
Practice questions106
Objectives5
Official pageView

What's covered

1. Application Design and Build

20%

Defining and building container images, jobs and cron jobs, multi-container Pods, and using volumes for persistence.

2. Application Deployment

20%

Deployment strategies such as rolling updates and blue/green, using Deployments, and the Helm package manager and Kustomize.

3. Application Observability and Maintenance

15%

API deprecations, probes and health checks, monitoring, logs, and debugging applications in Kubernetes.

4. Application Environment, Configuration and Security

25%

ConfigMaps, Secrets, security contexts, resource requirements, ServiceAccounts, and admission control concepts like CRDs.

5. Services and Networking

20%

Network policies, Services for exposing applications, and Ingress rules and controllers.

Frequently asked questions

Are these real exam questions?

No. These are original practice questions written to match the exam objectives, each with an explanation so you actually learn the material — not exam dumps.

How does practice mode work?

You answer questions one at a time with instant feedback and explanations. Over time the app adapts, prioritizing the objectives and questions you struggle with most.

What is a mock exam?

A timed, full-length simulation that holds feedback until the end, then shows your score, pass/fail result, and a breakdown by objective.

Can I customize how I study?

Yes. Pick the study mode that fits — adaptive practice, hard mode, ready-for-review, objective coverage, or retrying questions you've missed — and set your own question count, timer, and passing score for each session.

Do I need an account?

You can try free questions for this exam without signing in. Create a free account to save your progress, track weak objectives, and unlock the full question bank.

Study resources

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