<![CDATA[missionCTRL]]>missionCTRL is a podcast hosted by Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout, two DevOps engineers who agree that most infra content is boring. If you're a platform engineer, DevOps practitioner, or just spend your life in all things IaC, this podcast was made for you. We're bringing real opinions, real arguments, and practitioner-level takes on whatever's on our mind that week. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Brought to you by Spacelift. https://spacelift.io/

]]>https://spacelift.io/Riverside.fm (https://riverside.com)Mon, 02 Nov 2026 06:19:50 GMTWed, 23 Sep 2026 16:29:21 GMT60missionCTRL<p>missionCTRL is a podcast hosted by Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout, two DevOps engineers who agree that most infra content is boring. If you're a platform engineer, DevOps practitioner, or just spend your life in all things IaC, this podcast was made for you. We're bringing real opinions, real arguments, and practitioner-level takes on whatever's on our mind that week. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.<br /><br />Brought to you by Spacelift. <a href="https://spacelift.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://spacelift.io/</a></p>episodicmissionCTRLcaitlinb@spacelift.iono<![CDATA[GitOps: or how we learned to stop worrying and love the process]]>GitOps is infrastructure updates via pull request. Period. Or is it? In episode three of missionCTRL, Spacelift solutions architects Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout sit down with Tim Davis, Spacelift’s technical product marketing manager, to figure out what GitOps actually means and who gets to define it.

They dig into where the term came from, the Kubernetes purist argument, and the gap between teams who think they’re doing GitOps and teams who really are. They also cover what good governance looks like (plan visibility, approvals, drift detection), whether AI belongs in the review loop, and when a team is ready to adopt the process. Along the way, Joey tells the story of an admin merge, a deleted node group, and the shame bell that followed.

missionCTRL is brought to you by Spacelift, the infrastructure orchestration platform. Learn more at https://spacelift.io/.

Follow missionCTRL on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss an episode.

00:27 - Intro
01:37 - What is GitOps?
06:36 - Common gaps and scaling infrastructure as code
08:21 - Tooling vs. process methodology
12:11 - Drift detection and auto-remediation
13:50 - Joey's war story
14:58 - The role of AI in GitOps reviews
17:01 - Fighting "green flag fatigue" and the shame bell
19:51 - GitOps' Kubernetes roots and evolution
23:11 - Pull request visibility and feature wishlist
26:04 - Are there use cases for NOT using GitOps?
28:28 - When is a team ready for GitOps?
34:08 - Closing thoughts

]]>14b45a03-f0ba-4708-87d6-c9262597dd4eThu, 22 Oct 2026 15:13:59 GMT<p>GitOps is infrastructure updates via pull request. Period. Or is it? In episode three of missionCTRL, Spacelift solutions architects Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout sit down with Tim Davis, Spacelift’s technical product marketing manager, to figure out what GitOps actually means and who gets to define it.</p><p>They dig into where the term came from, the Kubernetes purist argument, and the gap between teams who think they’re doing GitOps and teams who really are. They also cover what good governance looks like (plan visibility, approvals, drift detection), whether AI belongs in the review loop, and when a team is ready to adopt the process. Along the way, Joey tells the story of an admin merge, a deleted node group, and the shame bell that followed.</p><p>missionCTRL is brought to you by Spacelift, the infrastructure orchestration platform. Learn more at <a href="https://spacelift.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://spacelift.io/</a>.</p><p>Follow missionCTRL on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss an episode.<br /><br />00:27 - Intro<br />01:37 - What is GitOps?<br />06:36 - Common gaps and scaling infrastructure as code<br />08:21 - Tooling vs. process methodology<br />12:11 - Drift detection and auto-remediation<br />13:50 - Joey's war story <br />14:58 - The role of AI in GitOps reviews<br />17:01 - Fighting "green flag fatigue" and the shame bell<br />19:51 - GitOps' Kubernetes roots and evolution<br />23:11 - Pull request visibility and feature wishlist<br />26:04 - Are there use cases for NOT using GitOps?<br />28:28 - When is a team ready for GitOps?<br />34:08 - Closing thoughts</p>no00:35:30GitOps: or how we learned to stop worrying and love the processfull<![CDATA[Kubernetes: the good, the bad, the ugly]]>Kat Cosgrove, a member of the Kubernetes steering committee and the release lead behind the infamous "Uwubernetes" naming, joins Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout to talk about what Kubernetes actually does well, where it goes wrong, and where people misuse it entirely. They cover self-healing and portability as the real wins, why rolling your own cluster is usually a mistake, the case against reaching for Kubernetes when you don't need it, how the project handles documentation and AI-generated contributions, and whether a Kubernetes 2.0 is ever coming.

Timestamps:
03:00 - Uwubernetes 

05:44 - Release leads

07:54 - What the hell is Kubernetes?

11:23 - OpenShift, K3S, and other alternatives

19:16 - Kubernetes: The ugly

24:45 - Kubernetes documentation

29:42 - Kubernetes: The good

31:35 - How to get involved with Kubernetes

35:12 - Kubernetes AI policy

38:21 - The Future of Kubernetes

44:07 - Closing statements

Follow missionCTRL for more episodes on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Brought to you by Spacelift: https://spacelift.io/

]]>f2168eaf-fefa-467d-baa7-28619943506eThu, 24 Sep 2026 15:35:19 GMT<p>Kat Cosgrove, a member of the Kubernetes steering committee and the release lead behind the infamous "Uwubernetes" naming, joins Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout to talk about what Kubernetes actually does well, where it goes wrong, and where people misuse it entirely. They cover self-healing and portability as the real wins, why rolling your own cluster is usually a mistake, the case against reaching for Kubernetes when you don't need it, how the project handles documentation and AI-generated contributions, and whether a Kubernetes 2.0 is ever coming.<br /><br />Timestamps:<br />03:00 - Uwubernetes </p><p>05:44 - Release leads</p><p>07:54 - What the hell is Kubernetes?</p><p>11:23 - OpenShift, K3S, and other alternatives</p><p>19:16 - Kubernetes: The ugly</p><p>24:45 - Kubernetes documentation</p><p>29:42 - Kubernetes: The good</p><p>31:35 - How to get involved with Kubernetes</p><p>35:12 - Kubernetes AI policy</p><p>38:21 - The Future of Kubernetes</p><p>44:07 - Closing statements</p><p>Follow missionCTRL for more episodes on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.</p><p>Brought to you by Spacelift: <a href="https://spacelift.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://spacelift.io/</a></p>no00:44:52Kubernetes: the good, the bad, the uglyfull<![CDATA[Rego isn’t hard, you’re just thinking about it wrong]]>Solutions architects Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout take on the internet's most argued-about policy language: Rego. They settle the pronunciation debate (Rego vs. Reego, OPA vs. OPA), break down how rule blocks actually evaluate using a pizza-toppings example, and make the case that most "Rego haters" just haven't used it enough for it to click. Along the way: debugging tricks with the Rego Playground and AI, underrated tools like Conftest and Regal, and the surprising places OPA shows up in the wild (Google Calendar, for one).

Follow missionCTRL for more episodes — on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Brought to you by Spacelift: https://spacelift.io/

00:21 - Welcome to the first episode of missionCTRL

03:02 - First: pronunciations 

04:40 - Rego and OPA overview

06:08 - JSON in, JSON out

09:34 - Explaining Rego with pizza

14:25 - Debugging Rego

18:20 - How and why to learn Rego

23:11 - Applying Rego and using other tools

26:36 - Rego resources

27:56 - Rego adoption

31:18 - Closing thoughts

Resources:

]]>ef777f51-d9ae-4797-a7dd-9cf12a121bb1Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:39:40 GMT<p>Solutions architects Emin Alemdar and Joey Stout take on the internet's most argued-about policy language: Rego. They settle the pronunciation debate (Rego vs. Reego, OPA vs. OPA), break down how rule blocks actually evaluate using a pizza-toppings example, and make the case that most "Rego haters" just haven't used it enough for it to click. Along the way: debugging tricks with the Rego Playground and AI, underrated tools like Conftest and Regal, and the surprising places OPA shows up in the wild (Google Calendar, for one).</p><p>Follow missionCTRL for more episodes — on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.</p><p>Brought to you by Spacelift: <a href="https://spacelift.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://spacelift.io/</a></p><p>00:21 - Welcome to the first episode of missionCTRL</p><p>03:02 - First: pronunciations </p><p>04:40 - Rego and OPA overview</p><p>06:08 - JSON in, JSON out</p><p>09:34 - Explaining Rego with pizza</p><p>14:25 - Debugging Rego</p><p>18:20 - How and why to learn Rego</p><p>23:11 - Applying Rego and using other tools</p><p>26:36 - Rego resources</p><p>27:56 - Rego adoption</p><p>31:18 - Closing thoughts</p><p>Resources:</p><ul><li>Our OPA video: <a href="https://youtu.be/x_IfmWXlHbI?si=rB2Ddu6z5SPjBxu2" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/x_IfmWXlHbI?si=rB2Ddu6z5SPjBxu2</a></li><li>Our OPA blog post: <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/open-policy-agent-rego" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://spacelift.io/blog/open-policy-agent-rego</a></li><li>OPA: <a href="https://www.openpolicyagent.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.openpolicyagent.org/</a></li><li>CNCF: <a href="https://www.cncf.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.cncf.io/</a></li><li>Rego Playground: <a href="https://play.openpolicyagent.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://play.openpolicyagent.org/</a></li><li>Conftest: <a href="https://www.conftest.dev/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.conftest.dev/</a></li><li>Regal: <a href="https://www.openpolicyagent.org/ecosystem/entry/regal" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.openpolicyagent.org/ecosystem/entry/regal</a></li></ul>no00:33:20Rego isn’t hard, you’re just thinking about it wrongfull