kill¶

Runtime lifecycle for cells and containers. 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> cell|container <name> <scope flags>.

kuke start¶

kuke start cell       <name> --realm <r> --space <s> --stack <t>
kuke start container  <name> --realm <r> --space <s> --stack <t> --cell <c>

Aliases: kuke start → kuke sta.

start cell starts the root container first, then every non-root container in the cell.
start container starts a single container. If the parent cell's network namespace isn't up, the command fails — you usually want start cell for the whole unit.

kuke stop¶

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

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

Aliases: kuke kill → kuke k.

Sends SIGKILL. Useful when a container 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/container
`--space`	`default`	Required for cell/container
`--stack`	`default`	Required for cell/container
`--cell`	(required for `container`)	Parent cell

Plus all global flags.

Examples¶

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

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

# Force-kill an unresponsive container
sudo kuke kill container stuck --cell 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 resource 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