kubectl rollout status: Command Reference for CI/CD

The canonical CI gate: wait for a deploy, fail on a bad one.

kubectl rollout status blocks until a rollout finishes or its progress deadline is exceeded, returning non-zero on failure. That exit code is what makes it the ideal deploy gate. This reference covers its flags and how to bound it.

Common flags and usage

rollout status deploy/<name>: block until the rollout completes
--timeout=120s: cap the wait, then exit non-zero
--watch=false: report current status once and return
--revision=N: check a specific revision rolled out
Works on Deployments, StatefulSets, and DaemonSets

Example

shell

kubectl set image deploy/web web=web:${IMAGE_TAG}
kubectl rollout status deploy/web --timeout=180s || {
  kubectl rollout undo deploy/web
  exit 1
}

In CI

Place rollout status immediately after any change that triggers a rollout (apply, set image, helm upgrade). It exits non-zero on "exceeded its progress deadline" which correctly fails the pipeline. Always pass --timeout so the step fails fast instead of hanging until the job-level timeout.

Key takeaways

rollout status exits non-zero on a failed rollout: the gate you want.
Always pass --timeout so CI fails fast, not at the job ceiling.
Pair a failed gate with rollout undo to auto-restore service.

Related guides

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