[CNCF LFX Proposal] Kubernetes - Expand Declarative Validation (DV) in Kubernetes

### CNCF Project

Kubernetes

### Term

2026 Term 3 (Sep-Nov)

### Program Name

Expand Declarative Validation (DV) in Kubernetes

### Program Description

## Description

This mentorship project focuses on advancing the Declarative Validation (DV) framework across the Kubernetes codebase. The project aims to reduce technical debt, improve API validation safety, and streamline schema migrations.
The mentee will work closely with maintainers to migrate existing handwritten validations of Pod and ObjectMeta to DV, graduate beta declarative validations to stable, expand the validation tag catalog, and assist with reviewing incoming community PRs. This directly impacts core API Machinery infrastructure and helps accelerate new API development in Kubernetes.

## Expected outcomes

- At least 10 new validations of ObjectMeta and Pod types are migrated to Declarative Validation.
- At least 30 migrated validations are graduated to stable, and the corresponding handwritten validations are deleted.

### Technologies

Go, Kubernetes, API machinery, Code Generation

### Skills same as Technologies?

- [x] Yes, the required skills are the same as the technologies listed above.

### Required/Desirable Skills

_No response_

### Mentors

Lalit chauhan | @lalitc375 | laitchauhan@google.com | lalitc375
Yongrui Lin | @yongruilin | yongrlin@google.com | yongrlin

### Upstream Issue URL

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Aarea%2Fapi-validation

### Application Prerequisites

- [x] Resume
- [x] Cover Letter
- [ ] School Enrollment Verification
- [ ] Participation Permission from school or employer
- [ ] Coding Challenge
- [ ] Custom Prerequisite (fill in details below)

### Coding Challenge URL

_No response_

### Custom Prerequisite Name

_No response_

### Custom Prerequisite Description

_No response_

### Custom Prerequisite — File Upload

- [ ] Yes — completion of this task requires the mentee to submit a file.

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**LFX program:** [CNCF - Kubernetes: Expand Declarative Validation (DV) in Kubernetes (2026 Term 3)](https://mentorship.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/project/841f2363-4c93-4d3e-931b-030499af82df)

Start with the upstream Kubernetes area/api-validation issue query and read the Declarative Validation work in API machinery, focusing on Pod and ObjectMeta validations, validation tags, and code generation. Done means migrating at least 10 validations, graduating at least 30 to stable, deleting the corresponding handwritten validations, and helping review incoming PRs.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.