The Kubernetes in Action code archive is organised by chapter, and some files are wrong on purpose

One directory per chapter, across five parts

The repository is a code archive rather than a library, and it is organised the way a reader consumes the book. The README states that it contains all the code and some additional files from Kubernetes in Action, 2nd Edition, and that the archive is organized per chapter, with a description of the files to be found by following the links in the README. The top level of the tree makes that concrete. There is a directory for each chapter that ships code, from Chapter02 through Chapter18, with the gaps being the chapters that have none. Alongside them sit three support directories: container-images/, env/ and scripts/. The chapter structure follows the book's five parts. Part I is Getting Started with Kubernetes, Part II is Running Applications on Kubernetes, Part III is Managing Application Configuration and Storage, Part IV is Connecting and Exposing Applications, and Part V is Managing Applications with Controllers. For a reader, that mapping is the whole navigation model, and it also tells you where the book's emphasis sits, with Part V alone covering five chapters of controllers.

Two chapters carry no code at all

Not every chapter has a directory, and the README is explicit about the two that do not. Chapter 1, Introducing Kubernetes, is listed as having no code files, and so is Chapter 4, Navigating the Kubernetes API and Object Model. Both are conceptual chapters, and the archive reflects that rather than padding it with an empty folder. The rest run continuously from Chapter02 through Chapter03 and then Chapter05 to Chapter18. The progression is the Kubernetes curriculum in order. Chapter02 covers understanding containers and containerized applications, Chapter03 deploying a first application, Chapter05 running applications with Pods, Chapter06 the pod lifecycle and container health, Chapter07 organizing pods with namespaces and labels, Chapter08 configuration with ConfigMaps and Secrets, Chapter09 volumes, Chapter10 PersistentVolumes, Chapter11 Services, Chapter12 Ingress, Chapter13 the Gateway API, Chapter14 ReplicaSets, Chapter15 Deployments, Chapter16 StatefulSets, Chapter17 DaemonSets and Chapter18 batch work with Jobs and CronJobs.

The Gateway API chapter is the visible update in this edition

One structural difference from a first edition code archive jumps out from the table of contents. The traffic routing material is split across two chapters rather than one. Chapter 12 covers using Ingress to route traffic to Services, and Chapter 13 is a separate chapter on routing traffic using the Gateway API. The Gateway API is the newer routing model in Kubernetes, and giving it its own chapter in the second edition reflects where the ecosystem has moved, away from treating Ingress as the only option. For someone learning from the book today, that is the chapter directory to look at first, since it is the one most likely to differ from what older tutorials and blog posts describe. The chapter list also stops short of the newer work, and it is worth noticing what is absent: there is no chapter directory for anything after Chapter 18, and batch processing with Jobs and CronJobs is where the archive ends.

Deliberate errors will waste your afternoon if you do not know

The contributing section carries the single most important warning in the README, and it deserves its own attention. If you would like to contribute a code improvement or a bug fix, you are asked to submit a pull request, and the note that follows says that some files are intentionally incomplete and may even contain intentional errors for demonstration purposes. That is a sound pedagogical choice. A book that shows a broken manifest and then walks through fixing it teaches something a set of working files cannot. The consequence for a reader using the repository as a reference is real, though. If you run a chapter's example and it fails, that may be the lesson rather than a bug, and the only reliable way to tell the difference is to have the chapter text in front of you. The same note also tells you what the project wants from outside contributors, which is corrections to those deliberately broken files, not working code that removes the teaching moment.

container-images, env and scripts sit outside the chapters

The three root directories carry the material that is not tied to a single chapter. container-images/ is where the built images for the examples live, env/ holds environment material used by the examples, and scripts/ holds the scripts the chapters invoke. Their presence at the root rather than inside each chapter tells you they are shared infrastructure, which is the sane arrangement for a book where later chapters build on the running cluster established in the earlier ones. It also means that a chapter directory alone may not be self-contained, and that copying a single chapter out of the repository to try it will probably not work as expected. The primary language recorded for the repository is JavaScript, which reflects the tooling and scripts around the examples rather than the language of the Kubernetes manifests themselves, since what the chapters actually teach is YAML applied to a cluster.

The book is still in Manning early access

There is a commercial detail attached to the code. The README states that the book hasn't been published yet but is available through the Manning early-access program, and it points to a quick look online in the livebook reader and to the purchase page for the second edition, offering a 35% discount with the code au35luk. So the code archive is public while the prose that explains it is not, which inverts the usual arrangement and explains the design choice about the deliberately broken files. The explanation lives in the text, and the text is behind the early-access program or the finished book. A reader who has the book gets a working commentary on the archive. A reader who only has the repository gets working files for most chapters, no commentary, and a set of intentional errors with no key to them. The repository links to the book site and the livebook chapter 1 view rather than duplicating any of that material itself.

No releases, no stated licence, and a recent commit

Two housekeeping facts belong in any assessment. The first is licensing. The licence is not stated for this repository, so there is no grant to rely on for reusing these manifests, scripts or images in your own work, and that question needs a lawyer rather than a guess, particularly since the files came from a commercial publication. The second is versioning. The repository publishes no GitHub releases, so there is no tag to pin and no version history to diff, and the practical reference is the commit history. The last push to the repository was on 2026-06-20, and it is not archived, so the tree is being touched, though how often is not something the repository says. What the layout does show is that this is a snapshot tied to a book in progress rather than a maintained collection of Kubernetes examples that you would want to depend on or vendor. Treat it as course material with a publisher's schedule, not as infrastructure you can rely on.

Editorial conclusion

kubernetes-in-action-2nd-edition suits a reader working through the second edition who wants the manifests, scripts and configuration for each chapter next to the text, and a teacher assembling labs from it. It is a poor fit as a general Kubernetes examples repository, because the code is arranged to match a book rather than to be a maintained, versioned collection, and because some of it is wrong on purpose. Verify first which chapter directories correspond to the material you are reading, treat any error you hit as potentially deliberate until you check the chapter text, and read the licence position carefully, since the licence is not stated for this repository.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. luksa/kubernetes-in-action-2nd-edition on GitHub
3. README