Blog: Introducing Hydrophone

In the ever-changing landscape of Kubernetes, ensuring that clusters operate as intended is essential. This is where conformance testing becomes crucial, verifying that a Kubernetes cluster meets the required standards set by the community. Today, we’re thrilled to introduce Hydrophone , a lightweight runner designed to streamline Kubernetes tests using the official conformance images released by the Kubernetes release team. Hydrophone’s design philosophy centers around ease of use. By starting the conformance image as a pod within the conformance namespace, Hydrophone waits for the tests to conclude, then prints and exports the results. This approach offers a hassle-free method for running either individual tests or the entire Conformance Test Suite. In the Kubernetes world, where providers like EKS, Rancher, and k3s offer diverse environments, ensuring consistent experiences is vital. This consistency is anchored in conformance testing, which validates whether these environments adhere to Kubernetes community standards. Historically, this validation has either been cumbersome or requires third-party tools. Hydrophone offers a simple, single binary tool that streamlines running these essential conformance tests. It’s designed to be user-friendly, allowing for straightforward validation of Kubernetes clusters against community benchmarks, ensuring providers can offer a certified, consistent service. Hydrophone doesn’t aim to replace the myriad of Kubernetes testing frameworks out there but rather to complement them.