Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist
CKS practice questions, dealt by the exam blueprint
Hands on a real cluster, at a command line, with the documentation open. So this drills typed kubectl, task chains graded on a simulated cluster and tried on a live one, and a full mock under the same conditions.
flashkube is a flashcard game for Kubernetes certification. Miss a card and it comes back sooner; answer it well and it rests. That is spaced repetition, and it is the whole engine.
$29once · yours to keep
$29, paid once. Sitting the exam costs $445 — 15 cartridges for the price of one attempt.
see what the cartridge costs — three islands of free water, from wherever you land either way.
CKS · Cluster Hardening · 15% of the exam
In namespace payments, RoleBinding dev-admin gives the developers group cluster-admin. Remove that binding, and leave ci-view as it is.
kubectl get rolebindings -n payments
NAME ROLE AGE ci-view ClusterRole/view 5s dev-admin ClusterRole/cluster-admin 5s
Tap the words to build the line — or type it. Graded the same either way.
A simulated cluster, running in this page · looking is free
How many CKS cards are there?
6 islands · 19 landings
174 cards written for CKS, across 6 islands and 19 landings — counted from the cartridge itself, not written into this sentence. Cards are tagged per exam, so this is what a CKS candidate actually gets, not the whole library.
What is on the CKS exam, and how much of each?
official blueprint weights
- Cluster Setup15%
- Cluster Hardening15%
- System Hardening10%
- Minimize Microservice Vulnerabilities20%
- Supply Chain Security20%
- Monitoring, Logging and Runtime Security20%
Your daily hand is sampled against these weights, so the domain worth a quarter of the exam gets a quarter of your practice.
How does the CKS exam run, and what does that change?
Hands on a real cluster, at a command line, with the documentation open.
So the cartridge drills typed commands and finding the answer in the documentation alongside the recall underneath them — the recognition that makes your lab hours count. And task chains: multi-step kubectl work graded on a simulated cluster by what it ends up holding, which is the exam's own rule.
Use a lab for the cluster. Use flashkube for everything you will forget between now and the exam — it is the other half of the same preparation, not a substitute for the first.
Do I need another certification before CKS?
You must pass CKA before you may sit this one. The same cartridge covers both: one payment opens every exam sea, so preparing for CKA first costs nothing extra.
What comes after CKS?
A finished CKS route hands you to the platform stack, on the same cartridge. It also holds the skills shelf: the platform stack and the observability skill, built on a generic two-cluster production platform and graded at a terminal; and the K9s tender, a drill over a tool's own keys with no clock — for the job after the paper, and nothing bought separately.
What does CKS prep on flashkube cost?
$29, paid once. Nothing renews and nothing lapses — and every card written after you buy is already yours. Three islands of free water, from wherever you land, and ten CKS questions dealt by the blueprint free, with no account.
