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Kustomize

Kustomize is a Kubernetes configuration tool that produces environment-specific manifests from reusable YAML resources. It changes structured objects with overlays, patches, generators, and built-in transformations without introducing template expressions.

itVirtualization, containers, and orchestration

Kustomize

Kustomize is a configuration-rendering tool for Kubernetes manifests. It reads a directory containing a kustomization.yaml, accumulates the listed resources, applies declared generators and transformations, and emits ordinary Kubernetes YAML. The source resources remain valid Kubernetes objects because variation lives in the kustomization layer rather than template expressions inside those objects.

Kustomize is available as a standalone binary and through kubectl. kustomize build <directory> and kubectl kustomize <directory> render a target. kubectl apply -k <directory> sends the rendered objects to a cluster. Rendering itself does not contact the cluster or manage release history.

The resource flow

A kustomization is a directory with a kustomization.yaml file. Its resources field points to manifest files or other kustomization directories. Kustomize loads those inputs into a set of Kubernetes resources, then applies the target's customization instructions.

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