kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way

Bootstrap Kubernetes the hard way. No scripts.

50.4k stars · 15.9k forks

This repo isn't software code, so code checks are limited.

Caution

Caution: no human commits in a year, and most questions go unanswered.

Why

No human commits since April 2025, and only 0 of 14 recent issues got a maintainer reply. The repository holds mostly documentation, data or model files, so inactivity matters less than for a code library. (source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4)
The fork mmumshad/kubernetes-the-hard-way has taken over development, with commits this repository does not have. The repository holds mostly documentation, data or model files, so inactivity matters less than for a code library. (source 1, source 2)

What would change this

A release or merged commit from a maintainer, or replies to recent issues.
The upstream repository resumes regular human commits.

Maintenance

Complete

Dormant

Human commits, 30 days: 0
Human commits, 90 days: 0
Human commits, 365 days: 0
Bot share of commits, 365 days: 0%
Last commit: Apr 10, 2025 (1 year ago)
Last human commit: Apr 10, 2025 (1 year ago)
Authors, 90 days: 0
Last release: none found
Median PR merge time: 9 days

Responsiveness: of 14 recent issues, 0% got a maintainer reply. Median first response: n/a.

No human commits in 365 days, and most issues go unanswered.

Sources: Commits, Releases, Merged pull requests, Issues

People

Complete

Owner: Personal account
Commits sampled: 100 since Oct 12, 2016
Authors for half of commits: 2
Authors for 80% of commits: 28
Contributors: 44

Top committers

kelseyhightower: 47% of commits
David Ross: 3% of commits
ksingh7: 3% of commits
0x5d: 2% of commits
Leonardo Faoro: 2% of commits

No human commits in the last 365 days, so shares use the newest 100 commits back to 2016-10-12T19:29:09Z.

Sources: Commits, Contributors

Stars

Complete

Organic, confidence high

Bars show stars gained each week. Orange bars overlap a burst.

Bursts

Aug 19, 2016 to Aug 24, 2016: about 724 more stars than usual, peak 324 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Sep 9, 2016 to Sep 16, 2016: about 788 more stars than usual, peak 449 in one day, a shape we can't classify. Outside explanation: a Hacker News post, a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
Aug 16, 2017 to Aug 25, 2017: about 400 more stars than usual, peak 159 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
Aug 31, 2017 to Sep 5, 2017: about 466 more stars than usual, peak 272 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
May 14, 2018 to May 16, 2018: about 120 more stars than usual, peak 84 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
May 21, 2018 to May 22, 2018: about 66 more stars than usual, peak 45 in one day, a shape we can't classify. Outside explanation: a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
Nov 5, 2018 to Nov 6, 2018: about 73 more stars than usual, peak 72 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
Mar 10, 2019 to Mar 12, 2019: about 284 more stars than usual, peak 184 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in forks, a jump in issues and pull requests.
Sep 16, 2019 to Sep 18, 2019: about 94 more stars than usual, peak 69 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in issues and pull requests.
Oct 16, 2019 to Oct 17, 2019: about 100 more stars than usual, peak 101 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in issues and pull requests.
Jul 18, 2020 to Jul 21, 2020: about 113 more stars than usual, peak 78 in one day, a spike that tapers off. No outside explanation found, so this burst is unexplained.
May 2, 2021 to May 6, 2021: about 490 more stars than usual, peak 167 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in issues and pull requests.
Feb 17, 2022 to Feb 18, 2022: about 84 more stars than usual, peak 63 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Aug 22, 2022 to Aug 24, 2022: about 114 more stars than usual, peak 70 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Sep 15, 2022 to Sep 16, 2022: about 75 more stars than usual, peak 49 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Nov 20, 2022 to Nov 21, 2022: about 116 more stars than usual, peak 113 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Jul 4, 2023 to Jul 5, 2023: about 79 more stars than usual, peak 53 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Apr 9, 2024 to Apr 11, 2024: about 105 more stars than usual, peak 56 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in issues and pull requests.
Apr 16, 2024 to Apr 17, 2024: about 62 more stars than usual, peak 47 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
May 2, 2024 to May 3, 2024: about 120 more stars than usual, peak 102 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
May 13, 2024 to May 14, 2024: about 70 more stars than usual, peak 67 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Feb 12, 2025 to Feb 13, 2025: about 61 more stars than usual, peak 54 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Mar 11, 2025 to Mar 12, 2025: about 177 more stars than usual, peak 159 in one day, a spike that tapers off. No outside explanation found, so this burst is unexplained.
Apr 8, 2025 to Apr 8, 2025: about 63 more stars than usual, peak 79 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in issues and pull requests.
Jun 8, 2025 to Jun 9, 2025: about 148 more stars than usual, peak 125 in one day, a spike that tapers off. No outside explanation found, so this burst is unexplained.
Feb 23, 2026 to Feb 25, 2026: about 103 more stars than usual, peak 81 in one day, a spike that tapers off. Outside explanation: a jump in issues and pull requests.
May 6, 2026 to May 6, 2026: about 63 more stars than usual, peak 72 in one day, a spike that tapers off. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.
Sep 23, 2026 to Sep 27, 2026: about 366 more stars than usual, peak 168 in one day, a shape we can't classify. We couldn't check for an outside explanation.

2 stars GitHub has since removed (tracked since Oct 13, 2026).

Anyone can buy stars for any repo; bursts alone don't prove the owner did.

The star history looks organic.
Engagement is not compared for non-code or mirror repositories.

Sources: How star history is analyzed

Risk

Complete

Flags

High: mmumshad/kubernetes-the-hard-way has 270 commits this repository lacks, was pushed within 365 days and has 5,205 stars, while this repository is inactive (no human commits in the last year). Details
Info: The OpenSSF Scorecard for this project is 2.3 out of 10 (deps.dev). Details

License

Now: Apache-2.0 (OSI-approved)
A year ago: Apache-2.0 (OSI-approved)

Packages

No published packages found.

OpenSSF Scorecard: 2.3 out of 10 (via deps.dev).

Successor: mmumshad/kubernetes-the-hard-way, named in the fork that has more recent activity.

Sources: GitHub: kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way, Fork: mmumshad/kubernetes-the-hard-way

Badge

Add this to a README to show the current verdict:

[![RepoRadar](https://reporadar.ai/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way/badge.svg)](https://reporadar.ai/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way)

Earlier verdicts

Oct 14, 2026: Caution
Oct 13, 2026: Caution
Oct 13, 2026: At risk

Computed 16 hours ago · method 2026.10.2