The six Karpenter consolidation settings that actually move the needle in 2026. What each one does, the defaults that hurt, and the values I use in production.
Quick take
Karpenter's defaults are tuned for compute cost, not for your workload's tolerance for disruption. Six settings decide whether consolidation saves you 40% or causes a Sev-2 every Tuesday. Tune them once and the autoscaler stops being a footgun.
If you only have 90 seconds, this is the shape:
consolidationPolicy: WhenEmptyOrUnderutilized is the right default for most prod fleets in 2026.
consolidateAfter at the wrong value causes either expensive idle nodes or thrashy churn.
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