Debugging Kubernetes Services with Skaffold, VSCode & Cloud Code

Debugging is arguably more of an art form than a skill, and even though it can be learned and perfected over years of experience, the one thing that’s consistent is being able to open and train your eyes (including the third one lol) to see. However this requires a mental fortitude to consistently examine code, contextually comprehend it, then track down and squash bugs in a fairly repetitive manner.

As a software engineer, I really hate manual repetition of tasks and in a quest for a bug free life, I’ve embraced test driven development (esp. when I have control). This can greatly reduce bugs, but you won’t be able to catch all, some will still elude you, humble you and remind you that you’re still a mere mortal.

Anyway, where am I headed with all of this? The fact is, the last thing I need driving up my blood pressure outside of all of the above is this: Tooling. The right IDE plus the right plugins can make it significantly less painful in finding and squashing bugs.

Today we’ll configure VSCode, to allow us debug apps running within our kubernetes cluster (local or remote), and eventually automate the process using Cloud Code