Liveness or Readiness?
What is the difference between a liveness probe and a readiness probe, and what goes wrong when you conflate them?
Practical scenario
A service uses the same /health endpoint for both probes, and that endpoint queries the database. During a brief failover, the entire fleet restart-loops for eleven minutes and the outage outlasts the database event by a wide margin.
What it tests
Answer it out loud first. The guide below stays closed until you ask for it, on purpose.
- Whether the candidate knows the two probes trigger different actions
- Whether they can predict the cascade a bad liveness probe causes
- Whether dependency health is correctly excluded from liveness
Reading a strong answer is not the same as producing one. Commit to what you would say, then compare.