CKAD · domain
Application Design and Build
Practise Certified Kubernetes Application Developer CKAD Application Design and Build practice questions — original exam-style scenarios with answer choices, explanations, and analysis of common mistakes.
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What to know about Application Design and Build
Application Design and Build questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
How the topic appears in realistic exam-style scenarios.
Which detail in the question changes the correct answer.
How to eliminate plausible but wrong options.
How to connect the question back to the wider exam objective.
Watch out for
Common Application Design and Build exam traps
- ▸Answering from memory before reading the full scenario.
- ▸Missing a constraint such as cost, availability, security, scope or command context.
- ▸Choosing a broad answer when the question asks for the most specific fix.
- ▸Ignoring why the wrong options are tempting.
Question index
All Application Design and Build questions (31)
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Which of the following are valid concurrencyPolicy values for a CronJob? (Select all that apply.)
Medium2Which TWO of the following are valid concurrencyPolicy values for a CronJob?
Medium3A DevOps engineer wants to deploy a logging sidecar container that reads log files from the main application container. Which volume type should be used to share files between the two containers?
Medium4You need to debug a pod that is not responding. Which command attaches an ephemeral debug container to a running pod named 'web-pod'?
Hard5You want to create a Deployment that runs 5 replicas of a web application. Which kubectl command should you use?
Medium6A team is deploying a microservice that requires initialization of a database schema before the main application starts. The init container must run a script that writes to a shared volume. Which configuration correctly ensures the init container completes before the main container runs?
Hard7A CronJob is configured with concurrencyPolicy: Forbid and schedule: '*/5 * * * *'. The first job takes 7 minutes. What happens when the next scheduled time arrives?
Hard8A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?
Medium9Which kubectl command creates a pod named 'nginx' from the image 'nginx:latest'?
Easy10You are designing a Pod that must run a diagnostic tool to collect network logs before the main application starts. The diagnostic tool should run to completion, then the main application starts. Which approach should you use?
Hard11A developer wants to containerize a Node.js application. The Dockerfile should first copy only package.json and package-lock.json, run npm install, then copy the rest of the source code. Which Dockerfile best achieves this?
Medium12What is the purpose of a .dockerignore file in a Docker build context?
Easy13You need to debug a running pod that does not have a shell installed. Which kubectl command allows you to start an ephemeral container with a shell?
Medium14You need to schedule a task that runs every day at 2:00 AM. The task should be allowed to run even if a previous instance is still running. Which concurrencyPolicy should you set in the CronJob spec?
Medium15A Pod has two containers: one with a liveness probe that fails after 30 seconds. The restartPolicy is 'Never'. What state will the Pod be in after the liveness probe fails?
Hard16A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?
Medium17Which Dockerfile instruction sets a command that can be overridden when running the container?
Easy18You are tasked with deploying a stateless web application on a Kubernetes cluster. The application is containerized and listens on port 8080. You have created a Deployment named 'webapp' with 3 replicas, and a ClusterIP Service named 'webapp-svc' exposing port 80 targeting the application's port 8080. During testing, you notice that some requests to the service return errors while others succeed. You have verified that all Pods are running and ready. The application logs show no errors. What is the most likely cause of the intermittent failures?
Medium19A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?
Medium20You are tasked with running a batch job that processes 100 items in parallel, using a Kubernetes Job. The Job should ensure that all items are processed even if some pods fail, and the total number of pod failures should be limited to 3. Which Job configuration is correct?
Hard21You need to debug a pod that is running but not serving traffic. You want to add a temporary container with networking tools to the pod. Which command should you use?
Hard22You have a multi-container pod with two containers: container-A and container-B. container-B needs to access the network of container-A. Which configuration is required?
Hard23An init container in a pod runs a database migration script. The init container fails and exits with a non-zero exit code. What will happen to the pod?
Easy24You have a Pod with two containers: a main application and a sidecar that handles logging. The sidecar needs access to the same log files as the main application. Which volume type allows both containers to share files?
Medium25You have a multi-stage Dockerfile. The first stage builds a binary using a large build image. The second stage copies the binary from the first stage into a minimal runtime image. Which Dockerfile instruction is used to copy artifacts from a previous stage?
Medium26What is the primary purpose of an init container in a pod?
Easy27A developer creates a Dockerfile with the following content: FROM alpine:3.18 COPY app.sh /app.sh RUN chmod +x /app.sh CMD ["/app.sh"] They want to override the command to run '/app.sh --debug' when deploying the container in Kubernetes. Which of the following pod spec fields should they use?
Medium28You have a pod with two containers: one runs a web server, and the other is a sidecar that logs the web server's output to a central logging system. Which pattern does this represent?
Medium29You need to run a batch job that processes 100 items. The job should be considered complete when all items are processed successfully. You want to run up to 10 pods concurrently. Which job configuration is correct?
Medium30You need to create a Job that runs a single task to completion. Which kubectl command correctly creates a Job named 'data-processor' that runs the image 'myapp/processor:1.0'?
Easy31You have a Job that runs a batch process. The Job YAML is as follows: apiVersion: batch/v1 kind: Job metadata: name: batch-job spec: parallelism: 4 completions: 12 backoffLimit: 2 template: spec: containers: - name: worker image: myapp:latest restartPolicy: Never If one pod fails after 3 successful completions, and the Job has already completed 7 successes, how many pods will be running at that point? Assume no other failures.
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Frequently asked questions
- What does the Application Design and Build domain cover on the CKAD exam?
- Application Design and Build questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
- How many questions are in this domain?
- This page lists all 31 Application Design and Build questions in the CKAD question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
- What is the best way to practise this domain?
- Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
- Can I practise only Application Design and Build questions?
- Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.