Pod Startup Time Check

Pod startup time check validates the startup time of Kubernetes pods.

Infrastructure type

• Kubernetes

Use cases

Pod Startup Time Check probe helps you:

• Validate pods start within acceptable timeframes

• Monitor deployment performance during rollouts

• Detect slow startup issues during chaos experiments

• Ensure application readiness times are optimal

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Overview

This probe validates that pods start within a specified duration. It's useful for monitoring deployment performance and ensuring applications initialize quickly after pod creation or restart.

Probe type

Command Probe

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes cluster with chaos infrastructure installed

• Access to target namespace and pods

• Sufficient RBAC permissions to query pod status and events

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Probe properties

Command

healthchecks -name validate-pod-startup-time

Comparator

Type	Criteria	Value
string	contains	[Pass]

The probe passes when the command output contains [Pass], indicating all pods started within the specified duration.

Environment variables

Variable	Description	Required	Default
TARGET_LABELS	Comma-separated list of target labels to filter pods.	No	-
TARGET_NAMES	Comma-separated list of target pod names.	No	-
TARGET_NAMESPACE	Namespace of the target pods.	No	-
TARGET_KIND	Kind of the target resource (e.g., deployment, statefulset, daemonset).	No	deployment
AGE_CRITERIA	Pods older than this age (in seconds) will be excluded from the check.	No	300
STARTUP_DURATION_CUTOFF	All pods should start within this duration (in seconds).	No	300
STATUS_CHECK_TIMEOUT	Maximum time in seconds to wait for status check.	No	180
STATUS_CHECK_DELAY	Delay in seconds between status checks.	No	2

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Run properties

Property	Description	Type	Default
timeout	Maximum time to wait for the probe to complete (e.g., 30s, 1m, 5m)	String	180s
interval	Time between probe executions (e.g., 1s, 5s, 10s)	String	1s
attempt	Number of retry attempts before marking the probe as failed	Integer	1
pollingInterval	Time between retry attempts (e.g., 1s, 5s, 10s)	String	-
initialDelay	Initial delay before starting the probe (e.g., 0s, 10s, 30s)	String	-
stopOnFailure	Stop the experiment if the probe fails	Boolean	false
verbosity	Log verbosity level (info, debug, trace)	String	-

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Probe definition

You can define this probe in your chaos experiment as follows:

Using pod labels

probe:
  - name: "startup-time-validation"
    type: "cmdProbe"
    mode: "Edge"
    cmdProbe/inputs:
      command: "healthchecks -name validate-pod-startup-time"
      comparator:
        type: "string"
        criteria: "contains"
        value: "[Pass]"
      env:
        - name: TARGET_LABELS
          value: "app=nginx"
        - name: TARGET_NAMESPACE
          value: "production"
        - name: STARTUP_DURATION_CUTOFF
          value: "120"
        - name: AGE_CRITERIA
          value: "600"
    runProperties:
      timeout: 180s
      interval: 1s
      attempt: 1
      stopOnFailure: false

Using pod names

probe:
  - name: "specific-pod-startup-check"
    type: "cmdProbe"
    mode: "Edge"
    cmdProbe/inputs:
      command: "healthchecks -name validate-pod-startup-time"
      comparator:
        type: "string"
        criteria: "contains"
        value: "[Pass]"
      env:
        - name: TARGET_NAMES
          value: "my-app-pod"
        - name: TARGET_NAMESPACE
          value: "default"
        - name: STARTUP_DURATION_CUTOFF
          value: "60"
    runProperties:
      timeout: 90s
      interval: 2s
      attempt: 3