We are proud to announce the release of Smart Karpenter version 1.2.0, which went live on December 5, 2025. It’s our next-generation autoscaling solution designed to simplify Kubernetes scaling, reduce cloud costs, and enable DevOps teams to focus on building rather than constant tuning.

Key Highlights in Smart Karpenter Version 1.2.0

This release introduces major features and enhancements across infrastructure, application scaling, and AI-driven decision making.

Upgraded Core: Karpenter 1.8.0

We’ve upgraded the core Karpenter engine to version 1.8.0, bringing significant stability and performance benefits:

• Prevention of resource leaks to avoid unexpected cloud costs
• Improved cluster hygiene for healthier node lifecycles
• Reduced manual cleanup operations
• Dual-strategy instance listing with automatic fallback, enhancing scalability for large clusters
• Automatic discovery of compatible OKE images, reducing manual configuration and version mismatches

Enhanced Node Management for OCI

Smart Karpenter now offers more flexible node rotation capabilities on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI):

• Graceful time-based rotations: Schedule automatic node replacements with zero downtime and full awareness of PodDisruptionBudgets (PDBs).
  For more information, see Graceful Node Rotation.
• Manual node refreshes: Trigger immediate refreshes by marking nodes for drift or disruption; Smart Karpenter safely provisions replacements and drains old nodes.
  For more information, see Manual Node Rotation.

Automatic Kubernetes Version Detection on OCI

Smart Karpenter can now automatically detect the Kubernetes version from your Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE) control plane and choose the right node image, eliminating the need for manual image selection and ensuring consistent, compatible node provisioning. 
For more information, see Automatic Kubernetes Version Detection on OCI.

Enhanced Disruption Budget Controls

New enhancements give cluster operators more control over node rotation behavior by allowing disruption budget policies based on:

• Percentage of nodes
• Absolute count
• Rotation reason or schedule

This ensures safer, more predictable rollouts during maintenance windows or upgrades.
For more information, see Disruption Budgets.

Key Benefits

With these features, organizations can expect:

• Up to 70% reduction in cloud costs by ensuring right-sized node and pod provisioning and eliminating over-provisioning.
• Better SLO (Service Level Objective) compliance, especially during unpredictable traffic or spikes.
• Less manual effort: no more tweaking thresholds, dummy pods, or maintaining large static node pools.

How It Works

Smart Karpenter combines two main layers:

1. Smart Scaler (AI / Prediction Layer) Deployed via Helm in Observation mode initially. It monitors real-time metrics across app services, builds a service graph, forecasts demand, and suggests optimal pod/node counts.
2. Karpenter ( Node Provisioning Layer)
   After confidence is established, in Optimize (or Run) mode, the predictions from Smart Scaler feed into Karpenter which then provisions nodes just-in-time. This ensures nodes are started when needed, used efficiently, and scaled down as demand falls.

Getting Started

Smart Karpenter v1.2.0 is already helping teams in production, and new users can get started today.
For detailed installation instructions and documentation, visit our Smart Karpenter documentation.