Use K3s in cluster mode, start doing. Cluster mode uses etcd instead of kine, kine is not good.

Configure the init flags to disable all controllers and other doodads, deploy them yourself with Helm. Helm sucks to work with but someone has already gone through the pain for you.

AI is GREAT at K8s since K8s has GREAT docs which has been trained on.

A good mental model is good: It's an API with a bunch of control loops