Skip to content

Clean up stale KubernetesPodOperator pods#70140

Open
fat-catTW wants to merge 2 commits into
apache:mainfrom
fat-catTW:fix-kpo-zombie-pod-cleanup
Open

Clean up stale KubernetesPodOperator pods#70140
fat-catTW wants to merge 2 commits into
apache:mainfrom
fat-catTW:fix-kpo-zombie-pod-cleanup

Conversation

@fat-catTW

@fat-catTW fat-catTW commented Jul 20, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Why:

KubernetesPodOperator pods can remain in Kubernetes after their TaskInstance is no longer active when a sidecar container keeps the pod running.

This can leave stale pods consuming cluster resources even though Airflow has already moved on from the task attempt.

Related: #58968

Solution:

Add an optional KubernetesPodOperator zombie pod cleanup path for KubernetesExecutor.

When enabled, the executor periodically lists pods with the kubernetes_pod_operator=True label and compares them with unfinished TaskInstances in the Airflow DB.

A pod is deleted only when Airflow can identify the TaskInstance it belongs to from the pod labels, and either:

  • the matching TaskInstance is no longer unfinished in the Airflow DB, or
  • the pod belongs to an older try than the current TaskInstance try number.

A pod is not deleted when:

  • its required identity labels are missing or malformed
  • it still has a matching unfinished TaskInstance
  • the cleanup has already reached kpo_zombie_pod_cleanup_max_deletes_per_loop for the current loop

Pods selected for deletion are processed oldest first by metadata.creation_timestamp.

The cleanup is disabled by default. Users can enable and tune it with the following [kubernetes_executor] config options:

  • kpo_zombie_pod_cleanup_enabled
  • kpo_zombie_pod_cleanup_interval
  • kpo_zombie_pod_cleanup_max_deletes_per_loop
  • kpo_zombie_pod_deletion_grace_period_seconds

This is scoped to KubernetesExecutor for now, with the cleanup logic kept in a reusable helper so it can be wired into other scheduler-side cleanup paths later.

Was generative AI tooling used to co-author this PR?
  • [X] Yes (please specify the tool below)

Generated-by: [Codex] following the guidelines


  • Read the Pull Request Guidelines for more information. Note: commit author/co-author name and email in commits become permanently public when merged.
  • For fundamental code changes, an Airflow Improvement Proposal (AIP) is needed.
  • When adding dependency, check compliance with the ASF 3rd Party License Policy.
  • For significant user-facing changes create newsfragment: {pr_number}.significant.rst, in airflow-core/newsfragments. You can add this file in a follow-up commit after the PR is created so you know the PR number.

@fat-catTW
fat-catTW force-pushed the fix-kpo-zombie-pod-cleanup branch from 27b62f0 to b31e182 Compare July 21, 2026 03:59
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant