DevOps Daily Newsletter - Week 16, 2026
Happy Sunday - here's everything we published this week to level up your DevOps game.
Blog Posts
Best Claude Code Plugins for DevOps Engineers in 2026
We rounded up the best Claude Code plugins built specifically for DevOps workflows. If you're working with Terraform, Kubernetes, or CI/CD pipelines, these will save you serious time.
Comparisons
Argo CD vs Flux
Argo CD and Flux both promise GitOps nirvana, but they take very different paths to get there. We break down where each one shines so you can pick the right fit for your team.
Checklists
Kubernetes Security Checklist
Lock down your Kubernetes clusters before they hit production. Covers RBAC, network policies, pod security, and more.
SSH Hardening Checklist
Disable root login, set up key-based auth, and tighten every SSH config option that matters.
Terraform Repository Structure Checklist
Stop fighting your Terraform repo layout. This checklist covers module structure, environment separation, and naming conventions.
Production Deployment Checklist
The pre-flight check you run before every production deploy - because rollbacks are never as clean as you think.
Monitoring & Observability Checklist
Make sure your monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting actually cover what matters before the next outage.
GitOps Implementation Checklist
Repo structure, sync policies, drift detection, and rollback plans - everything you need to go GitOps for real.
High Availability Architecture Checklist
Load balancing, failover, redundancy, and all the design decisions that keep your systems up when things go sideways.
Docker Security Hardening Checklist
Harden your Docker containers, images, and runtime configs so you're not the next cautionary tale on Hacker News.
CI/CD Pipeline Setup Checklist
From source control triggers to deployment gates - set up a CI/CD pipeline that's actually ready for production traffic.
AWS Security Checklist
IAM policies, S3 bucket settings, security groups, and the AWS config mistakes that keep showing up in breach reports.
AWS Well-Architected Review Checklist
Walk through the AWS Well-Architected Framework pillar by pillar and catch the gaps before your next architecture review.
Flashcards
Terraform Basics
Get the core Terraform concepts down cold - from providers and resources to state management and plan/apply workflows.
Linux Fundamentals
Brush up on the Linux basics that come up in every DevOps interview and every production incident at 2 AM.
Kubernetes Fundamentals
Pods, Services, Deployments, and more - test yourself on the Kubernetes building blocks you use every day.
Docker Essentials
Nail down containers, images, volumes, and networks. Great for beginners or anyone who wants to fill in the gaps.
CI/CD Concepts
Pipeline stages, testing strategies, deployment patterns - make sure you actually understand the CI/CD fundamentals behind the YAML.
AWS Essentials
EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, and the security and cost basics that every cloud engineer should know by heart.
Monitoring & Observability
Metrics, logs, traces, Prometheus, Grafana, alerting - the observability stack explained in bite-sized cards.
Helm Fundamentals
Charts, releases, values files, templates, hooks - everything you need to manage Kubernetes packages with Helm.
Git Fundamentals
Branching, merging, rebasing, and the workflows that keep teams shipping without stepping on each other.
ArgoCD Fundamentals
GitOps principles, sync policies, multi-cluster setups - get fluent in ArgoCD before your next deployment.
Ansible Basics
Playbooks, roles, inventory, modules, and variables - the Ansible fundamentals for automating anything.
Featured Game
Service Mesh Traffic Simulator
Ever wonder what actually happens when a sidecar proxy intercepts your traffic? This interactive simulator lets you visualize mTLS, traffic splitting, and routing rules in real time.
Happy learning, The DevOps Daily Team