Ship It with an Agent

Introduction 🔗

In this challenge you will deploy a small microservices application using a coding agent and Meshery. It is the warm-up for the CAINA credential: a complete, low-risk run through the design-to-deploy loop.

Prerequisites 🔗

• A Kubernetes cluster (kind, k3d, minikube, or managed) with kubectl.
• Meshery running (mesheryctl system start) and connected.
• A coding agent with shell access.

Step 1 - Import the design 🔗

Use the academy’s microservices demo design:

mesheryctl design import \
  -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meshery-extensions/tcslabs-academy/master/designs/microservices-demo.yaml \
  -s "Kubernetes Manifest"

Open it in Kanvas and confirm the topology: frontend -> api -> redis, all in the tcslabs-demo namespace.

Step 2 - Brief the agent 🔗

Give your coding agent a safe runbook:

1. Show me a dry-run / diff of what deploying this design will change.
2. Wait for my approval.
3. Deploy the "microservices-demo" design via Meshery (or kubectl apply).
4. Wait for all three Deployments to become Available; report status and any events.

Step 3 - Approve and deploy 🔗

Review the dry-run. If it looks right, approve. Then verify:

kubectl -n tcslabs-demo get deploy,svc,pods
kubectl -n tcslabs-demo rollout status deploy/frontend
kubectl -n tcslabs-demo rollout status deploy/api

Step 4 - Prove the request path 🔗

Port-forward the frontend and confirm it reaches the API:

kubectl -n tcslabs-demo port-forward svc/frontend 8080:80
curl -s localhost:8080 | head

Step 5 - Clean up 🔗

kubectl delete namespace tcslabs-demo

What you learned 🔗

You ran the full design-to-deploy loop with a coding agent and Meshery, kept a dry-run and approval gate in the path, and verified the result. Take the exam to complete the challenge.