Container Workload Deployment

Create, scale, update and remove containerized workloads, and manage the images behind them.

Creates, scales, updates, or removes a containerized workload on one of the supported platforms, and covers the registry-side operations (repository/tag management on Docker Hub) needed to get an image ready for that workload. Each platform's own documented procedure, field rules, and error handling live in references/<platform>/procedure.md.

When to use this skill

• A workload needs to be deployed, scaled up/down, rolled forward to a new image, or removed on Kubernetes (as an apps/v1 Deployment), Docker Engine (as a container), or when Docker Hub's own repository/tag API needs to be used to prepare or verify an image before/after that deployment.
• Not for building the image itself (Dockerfile builds, BuildKit) — this skill assumes the image already exists somewhere pullable. Not for Kubernetes workload types other than Deployment (StatefulSet, DaemonSet, Job, or a bare Pod each have different semantics this skill doesn't cover), Docker Swarm services, or Docker Compose's own multi-container orchestration model — see references/INDEX.md.

Universal concepts (apply regardless of platform)

• A container image reference (repository[:tag][@digest]) is the one thing every platform below agrees identifies "what to run." Kubernetes and Docker Engine both actually run it; Docker Hub is the registry that stores and serves that reference rather than a runtime — its role in this skill is preparing/verifying the reference the other two consume, not deploying anything itself.
• There is no single wire-level standard spanning all three platforms, unlike DNS's RFC 1035 — treat every endpoint, field name, and status code as platform-specific unless stated otherwise here. Kubernetes is the one outlier with unusually rigorous, centrally documented API behavior: a set of API conventions apply uniformly across every Kubernetes resource type, not just Deployments — see references/kubernetes/procedure.md for the specifics. Docker Engine and Docker Hub each define their own request/response shapes independently, with no equivalent shared convention layer between them.
• Removing a running workload is destructive and hard to reverse — a Kubernetes Deployment delete tears down its ReplicaSets and Pods, and a Docker Engine container removal discards the container's writable layer unless volumes were used. Every platform procedure below has its own confirmation gate built into the relevant step; never skip it because "the API call would succeed."
• "Scaling" is a native, separately-documented primitive only on Kubernetes (the Deployment scale subresource). Docker Engine has no built-in replica-count concept for a plain container — its procedure documents the practical workaround (running multiple distinctly-named containers) as an inferred pattern, not a vendor-documented "scale" call. Docker Hub has no runtime concept at all.

Procedure

1. Identify the target platform — from the caller's request or the platform argument. If it isn't one of the platforms in references/INDEX.md, stop: this skill doesn't cover it, and does not improvise a generic procedure for an unsupported platform.
2. Open references/<platform>/procedure.md and follow it exactly — it contains that platform's full operational procedure, error handling, patterns, known limitations, tools, and verification checklist. This file is intentionally the router; the real steps live per platform because the platforms genuinely do not share one procedure (a Kubernetes Deployment, a Docker Engine container, and a Docker Hub repository/tag are three different kinds of object with three different lifecycles).
3. Report the outcome using that platform procedure's own status vocabulary (e.g. Kubernetes' Status object reason values, Docker Engine's HTTP status per operation, Docker Hub's message field on error) — don't normalize it away.

Known limitations

• Does not cover building a container image — every platform procedure assumes the image to deploy already exists and is pullable from wherever it's referenced.
• Does not cover Kubernetes workload types other than Deployment, Kubernetes' HorizontalPodAutoscaler (autoscaler-driven scaling is a separate controller acting on the same scale subresource this skill documents, not a caller-driven call itself), Docker Swarm services, or Docker Compose.
• Docker Engine has no documented native scale/replica-count primitive for a plain container — see Universal concepts and references/docker-engine/procedure.md for the workaround pattern and its limits (e.g. host port collisions).
• Docker Hub's currently documented v2 REST API does not include a delete-tag or delete-repository endpoint — confirmed absent during research, not omitted by oversight. See references/docker-hub/procedure.md for how this is handled.
• Platform coverage is exactly the three platforms in references/INDEX.md — a platform not listed there needs a new references/<platform>/procedure.md before this skill can be used for it.

Contributing to this skill

SKILL.md itself should only ever change for two reasons: a bug in the universal concepts/router logic above, or adding a pointer to a newly-supported platform. Platform-specific procedure changes — a new error code, a corrected field name, a changed API path — belong in that platform's own references/<platform>/procedure.md and endpoints.md, never here. If you're about to add vendor-specific detail to this file, put it in the platform's reference file instead.

Tools

Each platform assumes its own authenticated client (Kubernetes API server client, Docker Engine API client, Docker Hub REST client) — see references/INDEX.md for which, and that platform's procedure.md for the specific operations/mechanisms.

Verification checklist

• [ ] Target platform confirmed against references/INDEX.md before proceeding
• [ ] That platform's own procedure.md was followed, including its own confirmation gates and error handling — not a generic/improvised sequence
• [ ] Outcome reported using the platform procedure's own status vocabulary