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%)
  • >= 300 for production