Pre-Deploy Check

Ensure cluster, ACR, permissions, and tooling are all ready before deploying. Follow this strict order.

6a. Cluster Readiness

If already confirmed ready in a prior status check, skip. Otherwise:

az aks show --name <cluster> --resource-group <rg> --subscription <sub> --query "provisioningState" --output tsv

• Succeeded: continue.
• Creating: az aks wait --name <cluster> --resource-group <rg> --subscription <sub> --created --interval 30 --timeout 600
• Failed: offer retry or a different cluster via vscode_askQuestions.

6b. Cluster Metadata Detection

Record cluster properties to gate subsequent checks:

az aks show --name <cluster> --resource-group <rg> --subscription <sub> --query "{sku:sku.tier, azureRbac:aadProfile.enableAzureRBAC, localAccountsDisabled:disableLocalAccounts}" --output json

For existing clusters, use these flags to determine behavior. For new AKS Automatic clusters expect sku=Automatic, azureRbac=true, localAccountsDisabled=true.

6c. ACR Attachment

First, check whether the registry is already attached — when the cluster was created through the Kickstart cluster-setup view, it already granted the cluster's kubelet identity AcrPull on the registry, so this step is usually a no-op:

KUBELET_ID=$(az aks show --name <cluster> --resource-group <rg> --subscription <sub> --query "identityProfile.kubeletidentity.objectId" --output tsv)
az role assignment list --assignee "$KUBELET_ID" --role "AcrPull" --scope "/subscriptions/<sub>/resourceGroups/<rg>/providers/Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries/<acr>" --query "[].id" --output tsv

If that prints a role-assignment id, the registry is already attached — report "✓ Registry already attached" and skip to 6d. Otherwise attach it now.

Do NOT assume the user is Owner. az aks update --attach-acr requires Owner/Account Admin/Co-Admin on the subscription. Try approaches in order:

1. az aks update --name <cluster> --resource-group <rg> --attach-acr <acr> --subscription <sub>
2. If that fails ("Are you an Owner on this subscription?"), assign the role directly (reuse $KUBELET_ID from the check above):

   az role assignment create --assignee "$KUBELET_ID" --role "AcrPull" --scope "/subscriptions/<sub>/resourceGroups/<rg>/providers/Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries/<acr>"
   

3. If that also fails (403 — user lacks roleAssignments/write), follow /kickstart-pim-activation to check for PIM-eligible roles and guide activation. If none eligible, print an admin hand-off block with the exact az role assignment create command.

6d. kubelogin

AKS Automatic disables local accounts.

which kubelogin

If missing: az aks install-cli. If that fails: brew install Azure/kubelogin/kubelogin or https://github.com/Azure/kubelogin/releases. Never use az aks get-credentials --admin (will fail). Never suggest az aks command invoke (same user identity, same Forbidden error).

6e–6g. Permission Probes (preferred — single call)

Invoke the bundled VS Code command aks.checkDeploymentPermissions via vscode/runCommand. It runs all five remaining permission gates against the Azure ARM API (no kubectl / az acr build round-trip) and returns a self-contained markdown report you can render directly in chat.

Args:

{
  "subscriptionId": "<sub>",
  "resourceGroup": "<rg>",
  "clusterName": "<cluster>",
  "acrName": "<acr>"
}

Returns:

{
  cancelled: boolean,
  allPassed?: boolean,
  scope?: { clusterScopeId, acrScopeId? },
  probes?: Array<{ id, label, status: "pass" | "fail" | "unknown", reason, recommendedRoles?, remediation? }>,
  markdown: string  // render verbatim
}

Probes performed:

How to use the result:

• If allPassed === true: render markdown and proceed to Confirm.
• For any failing probe, the included remediation is a ready-to-run az role assignment create command. Offer to run it.
• If az role assignment create then returns 403 (user lacks Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/write), follow /kickstart-pim-activation — that skill calls aks.checkRoleAssignmentPermissions to surface PIM-eligible roles or generate an admin hand-off block.
• If acrName is omitted (no ACR in scope), the three ACR probes are skipped and the report says so.

Fallback (only if the command is unavailable in this build): fall back to the manual probes —

az aks get-credentials --resource-group <rg> --name <cluster> --overwrite-existing
kubectl auth can-i get namespaces
kubectl auth can-i create deployments --namespace <namespace>
az acr build --registry <acr> --image kickstart-probe:probe --file /dev/null /dev/null 2>&1 | head -5

With the same remediation roles as listed in the table above.

Confirm

Confirm readiness via vscode_askQuestions: "Yes, deploy" (recommended), "Review artifacts first", "Not yet".