Building a Production-Style Go Service on Kubernetes

Goal

The goal is not to build a large distributed system on day one. The goal is to practice the production path around a small service: API shape, container image, deployment manifest, health checks, configuration, and repeatable CI.

Service boundary

I start with a Go service that has a narrow API boundary and clean package structure. The service should expose predictable REST or gRPC endpoints, structured logs, and a health endpoint that does not depend on optional downstream systems.

Container image

The container should use a multi-stage build and run as a non-root user. This keeps the runtime image small and forces the service to be explicit about filesystem access, ports, and process behavior.

Kubernetes deployment

The Kubernetes layer should include liveness and readiness probes, resource requests and limits, ConfigMap and Secret separation, and Helm values overlays for dev and prod-like environments.

CI checks

The CI path should run tests and linting, build the Docker image, and validate the Helm chart. The project becomes more useful when every operational assumption is checked before deployment.