Course 1 of 7 · The deployment/infra track

Containers & Local Dev, from newcomer to interview-ready

The foundation the whole deployments/ stack stands on — anchored to the local stack you run every day.

You asked to cover all of this repo's deployment domain — Kubernetes, Helm, Istio, runners, monitoring, Terraform. That's seven courses (see the plan below). This is Course 1, and it comes first for one reason: every one of those tools ultimately builds, ships, runs, or orchestrates a container. Get the container right and the rest has something to stand on.

Unlike the Airflow course (adjacent-team code), this one is grounded in files you touch daily — local/Dockerfile.development, local/docker-compose.*.yaml, local/run.bash. Two parts, built one at a time. Lessons are short — one win each. Read them in order.

How to use this Do one lesson, take its quiz from memory (no peeking), then skim the matching row of the cheat sheet. Come back a day later and re-take it — spacing beats cramming. Your sixth course; you know the rhythm. Stuck? Ask me — I'm your teacher, not just the author.

Part 1 — Containers & Docker available now

What a container actually is, how images are built, and how you run and wire them.

1 · What a container is (vs a VM)

Isolated process, not a machine — namespaces, cgroups, and the shared kernel.

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2 · Images, layers & Dockerfiles

The read-only template, why layers are cached, and this repo's multi-stage build.

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3 · Running containers

Ports, volumes (named vs bind), env vars, networks — and debugging one that won't start.

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4 · Docker Compose & multi-service stacks

One YAML, many containers — depends_on, healthchecks, and the repo's stack.

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Part 2 — This repo's local dev & the env×org model available now

From "a container" to "the whole backend running locally" — and the on-ramp to Kubernetes.

5 · The env × org model

Environment × organisation → namespaces & {env}-{org}-values.yaml.

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6 · The two local stacks

docker-compose (run.bash) vs kind+Skaffold (sk.bash) — when each.

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7 · Skaffold: build, render, deploy

How skaffold.*.yaml composes and hydrates the manifests.

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8 · The local dev loop

Code → binary → hot-swap into a running container (modd + docker cp).

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Part 3 — Senior containers & local dev new

The senior stretch — image strategy, readiness failures, fast inner loops, fidelity trade-offs, debugging, and interview-grade answers.

9 · Image strategy & entrypoints

Why the Dockerfile stages encode workflow design, not just image assembly.

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10 · Readiness & startup order

Started is not ready — and the senior logic behind the repo’s gate container.

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11 · Fast local inner loops

Rebuild vs hot-swap vs restart, and why this repo chooses hot-swap for the normal path.

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12 · Compose vs kind fidelity

Choose the stack that matches the question you are testing.

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13 · Debugging local stacks

A senior debugging order for broken local services.

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14 · Senior interview questions

High-signal local-dev and container questions with the right answer shape.

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15 · Mock senior interview pack

A retrieval-first mock round with scoring and strong answer points for every question.

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The 7-course deployment track

Decided this session, after surveying deployments/, local/ and .github/. Ordered bottom-up.

#	Course	Covers
1	Containers & Local Dev ← here	Docker, images/layers, Compose, the local stacks, env×org
2	Kubernetes	Pods, Deployments, Services, KEDA, HPA/VPA/PDB, the objects Helm renders
3	Helm	~106 charts, the shared library chart, values layering, SOPS secrets
4	Istio & Service Mesh	VirtualServices, EnvoyFilters, the ingress gateway
5	CI/CD & Delivery	~99 GitHub workflows, trunk-based deploy, ARC runners, binary authorization
6	Observability & Monitoring	Prometheus, Grafana, Thanos, Jaeger, OTel, Kiali, Grafana OnCall
7	Infrastructure as Code	Terraform (~34 modules), GCP (GKE/Cloud SQL/VPC/IAM/KMS), Workload Identity

Reference shelf

Cheat sheet

Dense revision sheet + interview one-liners.

Glossary

The canonical vocabulary, opinionated.

Repo map

Ground truth: Dockerfile, compose files, run.bash, sk.bash.

Resources

Docker, OCI, Compose, Skaffold, kind — plus senior local-workflow topics.

Senior backend playbook

The compressed version of the new senior part: image strategy, readiness, inner loops, fidelity, debugging, and interview answers.

The original 8 lessons are built — and the course now has a senior extension. You can define a container, build and run one, wire many with Compose, and explain this repo's env×org model, its two local stacks, Skaffold, and the hot-swap dev loop. The next step is a retention check: ask me to run a mock interview and I'll record where you're solid before Course 2 (Kubernetes).