Cluster Autoscaler

A ComputeClass is a ranked list of capacity preferences: try this shape first, fall back to that one. GKE numbers those rules from zero, so your top choice is “rule 0” — and the ccc_priority_index node annotation records which rule actually won each node. Aggregate it over time and you can finally answer the question the per-node view can’t: how much of the capacity you got came from your first choice? Here’s a working exporter, a Cloud Monitoring dashboard, and an argument about what “volume” should mean on that chart.

GKE 1.36.4 gives ComputeClasses a real status surface: per-priority conditions with backoff timers, a node annotation that names the priority rule that provisioned it, and an audit-log trail that outlives the nodes themselves. This has been the longest-standing gap in the API, and it’s worth an afternoon of your time to get functional with it.

A new cluster-scoped CRD lets you cap autoscaling by node attribute — machine family, accelerator type, zone, ComputeClass — rather than by namespace. It closes a gap ResourceQuota was never shaped to fill, and it lands upstream in kubernetes/autoscaler, not only in GKE.