image-pull-debug

A Kubernetes troubleshooter for pods that cannot download their container image, shown by statuses such as ErrImagePull or ImagePullBackOff. It checks pod details, container runtime logs, and events to identify the actual cause.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when a Kubernetes pod cannot start because its container image is not being pulled successfully.
Why use it?
It separates the visible pull-failure status from the underlying problem, such as an image name, registry, or access issue. It only diagnoses the issue and does not perform network debugging.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/scitix/siclaw/image-pull-debug
Any agent
npx skills add scitix/siclaw --skill image-pull-debug
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/scitix/siclaw

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 36 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,595 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00036 $0.01595
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00797
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00319
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00160

Measured 2d ago against content hash 645560594780, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

image-pull-debug scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

**Scope:** This skill is for **diagnosis only**. Once you identify the root cause, report it to the user and stop. Do NOT attempt network-level debugging (ping, curl, iptables, traceroute, etc.) — that is outside the sco
skills/core/image-pull-debug/SKILL.md · 163 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 163 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Image Pull Failure Diagnosis

When a pod is stuck in ErrImagePull or ImagePullBackOff, follow this flow to identify the root cause.

Important: ErrImagePull, ImagePullBackOff, and Back-off pulling image are NOT causes — they only indicate the pull failed. You MUST proceed through all steps below to find the actual cause. Never conclude with just these status messages.

Scope: This skill is for diagnosis only. Once you identify the root cause, report it to the user and stop. Do NOT attempt network-level debugging (ping, curl, iptables, traceroute, etc.) — that is outside the scope of this skill and should be left to the user or network administrator.

Diagnostic Flow

1. Get pod info — one call

k8s_inspect(kind: "pod", name: "<pod>", namespace: "<ns>")

All three things this step needs come back together: the waiting reason and message (which may already be the root cause), the image including its registry prefix, and the node name in the node section — which is the argument step 2 needs, and the reason this used to cost three separate reads before the node was even known.

Also check the image registry:

  • If the image has no registry prefix (e.g. nginx:latest, envoyproxy/gateway:v1.2.8), it pulls from Docker Hub (docker.io).
  • If it has a prefix (e.g. registry.example.com/app:v1), it pulls from that registry.

2. Check containerd logs

Containerd logs are the authoritative source for the root cause. Pod events are often generic ("Failed to pull image") and do not contain the actual error — always check containerd logs.

Use the node-logs skill — via host_script when the node is a bound SSH host (check host_list), otherwise node_script:

node_script: node="<nodeName>", skill="node-logs", script="get-node-logs.sh",
             args='--unit containerd --grep-fixed "<image>" --since "1h ago"'

Use --grep-fixed for the image reference: a registry path is a literal, and its ., - and / would otherwise be read as regex. Adjust --since to cover the pod's creation time.

Read the full file on GitHub · 163 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 163 lines · 36 tokens per session scan A 645560594780

Subscribe to this mod's changes

image-pull-debug is a skill published in the GitHub repository scitix/siclaw (230 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 36 tokens to every session and 1,595 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.