Graceful Shutdown

Problem

Kubernetes tells your application: Stop. But the application is currently processing a payment. Immediately killing the process may leave work incomplete.

Solution — Graceful Shutdown

Stop accepting new work, finish or safely hand off existing work, then terminate.

Stop signal
   ↓
No new requests
   ↓
Finish active work
   ↓
Exit

Core idea: graceful shutdown lets workloads terminate without unnecessarily abandoning in-flight work.