Kubernetes v1.36 moves In-Place Pod-Level Resources Vertical Scaling to Beta and flips the feature gate on by default.
Operators can patch a Pod's aggregate resource to resize running Pods. Often no container restart is needed.
Kubelet breaks the Pod-level change into per-container resize events. It updates cgroups via CRI or restarts containers according to policy. It checks node capacity and surfaces progress via Pod Conditions. On increases, Kubelet expands the Pod cgroup first. On decreases, it throttles containers first.
The beta-by-default change nudges the ecosystem toward aggregate, in-place resource control and tighter VPA integration. Teams will shift from per-container limit fiddling to Pod-level workflows.
