Skip to main content
Version: 1.42

Best Practices and Troubleshooting

Agents work best with Okteto when they follow the same patterns human developers use: deploy through the CLI, build with the Okteto Build Service, read okteto.yaml for service discovery. Most issues come from agents bypassing these patterns.

Best practices​

Read okteto.yaml for service discovery​

Agents should read the okteto.yaml manifest to discover services, build targets, and test definitions. Don't hardcode service names or assume a fixed project structure.

# Good: agent reads okteto.yaml to find services
# The plugin teaches agents to do this automatically

# Bad: agent hardcodes "api", "frontend", "worker"
okteto build api  # What if the service is called "backend"?

Reading the manifest makes the agent portable across projects.

Use okteto build, not local Docker builds​

Agents should use okteto build to build container images. This uses the Okteto Build Service, which pushes images directly to the Okteto Registry where they're accessible to the environment.

# Good
okteto build api

# Bad — image won't be in the registry
docker build -t api .

Use okteto deploy, not raw kubectl or helm​

okteto deploy handles building images, deploying services, and cleaning up resources when the environment is torn down. If an agent uses kubectl or helm directly, those resources won't show up in the Dashboard, won't get cleaned up automatically, and can leak across environments.

# Good — builds, deploys, and tracks everything
okteto deploy --wait

# Bad — resources get orphaned when the environment is destroyed
helm install my-release ./charts
kubectl apply -f manifests/

Never run okteto up from an agent​

okteto up starts an interactive development session with a terminal and file sync. It requires human interaction and will hang if an agent runs it.

Never run okteto destroy without authorization​

okteto destroy tears down all resources in the environment. An agent should never run this without explicit policy or human approval, since it could destroy shared resources or in-progress work.

Use --wait with okteto deploy​

Always pass --wait when deploying so the agent waits for services to be ready before moving on. Without it, the agent might try to test services that haven't finished starting.

# Good — waits for all pods to be ready
okteto deploy --wait

# Risky — services might not be ready yet
okteto deploy

Troubleshooting​

Agent hangs and becomes unresponsive​

The most common cause is the agent running okteto up, which is interactive and sits waiting for terminal input. Stop the agent, and switch to okteto exec (collaborative) or okteto deploy + okteto build (autonomous). The Claude Code Plugin teaches agents to avoid this automatically.

Build fails​

Check the build logs from okteto build <service>. Common causes include missing dependencies in the Dockerfile, a build context that doesn't include required files, or registry authentication issues.

If the agent is trying to use docker build locally, switch to okteto build to use the Okteto Build Service.

Tests fail after deployment​

First, make sure you're using okteto deploy --wait so all pods are running before tests execute. Then check okteto logs <service> --since 5m for startup errors or crash loops. Also review the test section of okteto.yaml to make sure the test container has the right image, commands, and dependencies.

Agent uses wrong service names​

The agent is probably not reading okteto.yaml. Make sure the Claude Code Plugin is installed, which teaches the agent to auto-discover services from the manifest.

Environment endpoints not accessible​

Run okteto endpoints to get the current URLs. If nothing shows up, check that services are deployed with okteto logs <service>, verify that your okteto.yaml or Helm chart exposes the correct ports, and confirm that okteto deploy --wait completed successfully.

Agent creates resources Okteto can't track​

This happens when the agent uses kubectl, helm, or other tools directly instead of okteto deploy. Resources created outside of Okteto's deploy pipeline won't appear in the Dashboard and won't be cleaned up automatically.

Make sure all deployments go through okteto deploy. If you need custom commands, add them to the deploy section of okteto.yaml.