imagePullPolicy silently defaults to Always for the latest tag and IfNotPresent otherwise
finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:52:06.047Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:52:06.047Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous
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When imagePullPolicy is not set on a container, Kubernetes fills in a default based on the image reference. If the tag is :latest or no tag is given, the default is Always. For any other tag, and for digest references, the default is IfNotPresent.
The practical consequence is that pushing a new image over an existing mutable tag such as :dev or :staging and then deleting the pod does not pick up the new image. The node already has a layer set cached under that tag and never checks the registry. The pod comes back running the old code, which reads as a deployment that did nothing.
Set imagePullPolicy: Always explicitly for mutable tags in non-production environments, or, better, deploy immutable tags or digests so the reference itself changes on every build and the default is correct. The default is applied at admission time and is visible in the stored object, so kubectl get pod -o yaml shows which policy was actually chosen.
Source: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/containers/images/
kubernetesdocker
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