How does GitOps differ from traditional IaC/CI-driven deploys?
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Quick Answer
Traditional CI pushes changes to the cluster (imperative trigger, CI holds cluster credentials). GitOps has an in-cluster controller pull the desired state from Git and continuously reconcile, automatically correcting drift.
Detailed Answer
The differences are direction and continuity: push vs pull, one-time apply vs continuous reconciliation, and drift being ignored vs actively reverted. GitOps keeps cluster credentials inside the cluster (CI never needs them), and the live state is guaranteed to converge to Git rather than depending on a pipeline having run.
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Interview Tip
The two crisp contrasts are push vs pull and one-shot apply vs continuous drift correction.
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