kill¶

Runtime lifecycle for cells. These commands don't touch metadata — they operate on the containerd task under the resource.

Command	Signal	What it does
`kuke start`	(create/start task)	Launch the container(s); no-op if already running
`kuke stop`	`SIGTERM`	Request graceful shutdown; container exits on its own terms
`kuke kill`	`SIGKILL`	Immediate termination; no graceful shutdown window

All three take the same shape: <verb> <name> <scope flags>. The <name> positional resolves to a cell within the named realm/space/stack — cells are the only lifecycle subject.

kuke start¶

kuke start (<name> | -l <selector>) --realm <r> --space <s> --stack <t>

Aliases: kuke start → kuke sta.

start starts the cell's root container first, then every non-root container in the cell.

With -l <selector> (mutually exclusive with the positional <name>) the start fans out across every cell in scope whose labels match, reconciling each matched cell individually. Unmatched cells are untouched.

kuke stop¶

kuke stop <name> --realm <r> --space <s> --stack <t>

Aliases: kuke stop → kuke sto.

Sends SIGTERM to the task. If the container has a shutdown handler, it gets a chance to run. There is no explicit grace period flag today — whatever the task does before exiting, it does.

kuke kill¶

kuke kill <name> --realm <r> --space <s> --stack <t>

Aliases: kuke kill → kuke k.

Sends SIGKILL. Useful when a cell is unresponsive. For the daemon itself, prefer the dedicated kuke daemon kill shortcut — it knows the daemon's static coordinates.

Common flags¶

All three verbs share the same scope flags:

Flag	Default	Scope
`--realm`	`default`	Required for cell
`--space`	`default`	Required for cell
`--stack`	`default`	Required for cell

kuke start additionally accepts -l, --selector (start-only among the three verbs): Label selector (e.g. kukeon.io/config=<name>); starts every matched cell in scope. Mutually exclusive with <name>.

Plus all global flags.

Examples¶

# Start a cell
sudo kuke start web --realm default --space blog --stack wordpress

# Graceful stop
sudo kuke stop web --realm default --space blog --stack wordpress

# Force-kill an unresponsive cell
sudo kuke kill web --realm default --space blog --stack wordpress

Exit semantics¶

Exit 0: signal delivered (or cell already in desired state for start).
Exit non-zero: the daemon couldn't find the resource, the resource is in a state that doesn't allow the transition, or the underlying containerd/runtime call failed.

After stop/kill, the cell is in Stopped state. start moves it to Ready. See Cell and Container for the full state tables.

kuke run — create + start a cell from a file or profile
kuke daemon — start/stop/restart/kill the kukeond daemon cell