[hddherman]

I think you could achieve something similar but by just using simple standalone containers that you start with Podman or Docker. Once you have the OS up and running, then all you need to do is push the configuration to the server (I just rsync systemd service files) and start the services. Persistent data is stored elsewhere anyway, so moving a service is just a matter of copying a directory over to another machine and ensuring that the permissions are correct.

k8s is probably great for many things, but as time goes on I really appreciate the ability to debug things effectively and by keeping my homelab setup as simple as possible I avoid the complexity of whatever advanced solution that is out there.

[g-clef]

I could, but with the same effort to set that up, I could have a full k8s setup...it doesn't actually save me any time to do it the "simple" way.