CKAD Application Deployment Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✓

  replicaCount: 3

  Why this is correct

  In Helm, values.yaml is a YAML file that supplies configuration defaults, and replicaCount is a conventional top-level scalar key (type integer). It is accessed in deployment templates via {{ .Values.replicaCount }} to set the replicas spec. This is valid because values.yaml accepts any YAML primitives, and Helm later merges this value with user-provided overrides such as --set replicaCount=5.

• ✗

  {{ .Chart.Name }}

  Why it's wrong here

  This snippet is a Go template expression referencing the built-in chart object, not a values.yaml field. Inside a template, .Chart.Name outputs the name from Chart.yaml, but values.yaml cannot contain Go template actions—it is data only. A valid field would be a plain key like chartName: mychart; the curly-brace syntax is interpreted by the template engine after YAML parsing and is meaningless as a YAML key/value.

• ✗

  {{- include "common.labels" . }}

  Why it's wrong here

  This is a Go template action, not a YAML field. The {{- ... }} syntax invokes a named template (common.labels) and the dash trims preceding whitespace; such logic belongs only in template files under templates/, not in values.yaml, which must contain pure data. Placing this in values.yaml would break chart parsing because Helm treats values as YAML, and an include directive is undefined there.

• ✓

  service: type: ClusterIP port: 80

  Why this is correct

  This block makes the top-level key service, with its value a nested dictionary (a mapping) containing the scalar keys type and port. Values.yaml supports arbitrary depth, and this structure is a widely used convention to bundle service settings so templates can refer to {{ .Values.service.type }} and {{ .Values.service.port }}. The specific values (ClusterIP and 80) are valid YAML scalars, so this is a legal Helm values field.

• ✓

  image: repository: nginx tag: latest

  Why this is correct

  This defines another nested mapping, with the key image holding subkeys repository and tag. It follows the common pattern of grouping container image metadata in values.yaml, often used with a full image string in templates like {{ .Values.image.repository }}:{{ .Values.image.tag }}. While similar in shape to the service block, its purpose is different—it sets the container registry and tag, and it is perfectly valid because YAML mappings can be nested arbitrarily.

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