Diagnose EKS worker nodes in NotReady and determine safe remediation.
SkillScore91Maintained
Automatic
◆DevOps & SRE pack
Last verified 8/3/2026
What it changes
Passed 20 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 17 of 22 without it.
Without skill77%
With skill91%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Recommends verifying that pending pods schedule on healthy nodes
Recommends checking whether the failure is isolated to a single nodegroup
Identifies AMI rollouts as a potential root cause for simultaneous node failures
3 fixed17 passed either way2 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+14 pp
Tokens
-31%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-44%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/3/2026v120 of 22 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 3 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 3
Prompt
We replaced a faulty EKS worker node and the EC2 console shows the instance is running. What final verification steps within Kubernetes guarantee the issue is fully resolved?
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Recommends verifying that pending pods schedule on healthy nodes
Missed
Passed
Recommends verifying that workload health stabilizes
Passed
Passed
case-19 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/3/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md43 linessingle file
When to use
Use when EKS nodes show NotReady, Unknown, or pods cannot schedule due to node health.
Preconditions
You can access Kubernetes node status and AWS instance health.
Procedure
Confirm which nodes are affected and whether it is a single nodegroup/az.
Inspect node conditions and kubelet-related events.
Identify whether the node is reachable and if CNI is failing.
Check EC2 instance status checks and recent scaling events.
Decide between waiting, draining, or replacing the node.
Decision points
Single node failure: drain/replace after confirming workloads can move.
Many nodes in same nodegroup/az: suspect networking, IAM, AMI, or a rollout.
CNI failure symptoms: verify VPC CNI health and ENI/IP exhaustion.
Verification
Nodes return to Ready or are replaced and the new nodes are Ready.
Pending pods schedule and workload health stabilizes.
Rollback / undo
Revert recent nodegroup/AMI/config changes if correlated.
If replacement worsens impact, pause nodegroup rollouts.
Escalation
Platform team for cluster-wide networking/CNI issues.