We’re excited to announce that Buoyant is partnering with Merge Forward to host the Ultimate Cloud Native Escape Room Party during KubeCon Amsterdam!

Forget the usual conference party. This year, we’re inviting you to a high-stakes investigation on the canals, the ultimate cloud native escape room party: Kube-napping! Phippy’s abduction on the canals. Register today to secure your spot! 

The mystery: Find Phippy before their liveness probe fails!

A dark deployment has settled over Amsterdam, and Phippy, the beloved CNCF mascot, has vanished! A mysterious note signed by an "Unknown Controller" has been found, tied to a corrupted cluster. Her only hope is an elite team of engineers: YOU!

Join Linky the Lobster, Linkerd's trusty mascot, and your fellow Cluster Detectives to follow the metrics, read the traces, and debug the deployments using your core Kubernetes and Linkerd skills. This immersive experience is part technical deep dive, part abduction mystery, and part party.

Your access is gated by your skills

The event is designed to test and sharpen your cloud native skills. Access to the party rooms is gated by successfully completing a new group challenge. Each room has progressively better food and beverages, from simple drinks and snacks to specialty cocktails and champagne and caviar in The Vault. 

How it works

You’ll join a small team of three to four members to solve progressively difficult challenges, with each successful step revealing a clue to Phippy's whereabouts. You can sign up as a team or request to be matched.

The first three teams to successfully solve the final, most complex challenge and gain access to The Vault will not only save the day, but each team member will also be rewarded with exclusive prizes!

• Master Cluster Detective Award (first prize): Flipper Zero
• Service Mesh Saviors Award (second prize): Arduino Plug and Make it Kit
• Liveness Probe Restorers (third prize): Power bank 30W

Everyone else gets who cracks The Vault gets an Escape Room Winners t-shirt. 

Secure your spot: Find the first clue

Your mission starts before the party even begins. After you enlist in Linky’s investigative team to join the party on Wednesday, March 25, you must pass your first challenge. To get access to the venue, each Cluster Detective candidate must find their first clue by solving an individual challenge and retrieve a code word. Only Cluster Detectives with the secret code word will be admitted into the Save Phippy Command Center. 

Space is limited. Take the challenge and register today!

Want to win? Prepare for The Vault

The final level is designed for the elite. If you’re here to win, we recommend preparing your Kubernetes and service mesh skills. While you can uncover the initial clue without prior Linkerd knowledge, reading the documentation will give you the edge you need to claim the Master Cluster Detective Award.

Recommended Prep:

• Kubernetes basics (docs)
• What is a service mesh?
• Linkerd docs

And if you are very eager, take the Service Mesh 101 self-paced course (you even get service mesh certified!)

Register today, sharpen your skills, and see you at The Vault!

Beyond the Party: Find Our Team at KubeCon

Whether you're investigating or just here to network, the Buoyant team is deployed all over KubeCon.

Swing by the Linkerd kiosk

Find the Buoyant team at the Linkerd kiosk in the Project Pavilion. Swing by to chat about your favorite service mesh and ask your burning questions to the Linkerd maintainers.‍

Catch our Linkerd talks

Don’t miss our latest technical sessions and Linkerd deep dives:

• From Signals to Safety Nets: Self-Healing Progressive Delivery With Argo Rollouts, with Buoyant Solutions Architect Joe Fuller
• Project Lightning Talk: MCP Routing In Linkerd, by Linkerd Evangelist Flynn‍
• Real-World Supply-Chain Security, by Linkerd maintainer Alex Leong
• Linkerd: Reliable Production in an AI/MCP World, by Linkerd Evangelist Flynn
• ‍Peeking Into the GPU Black Box: Continuous Profiling on Kubernetes With eBPF,  by Linkerd maintainer Zahari Dichev

Add them to your schedule today! We look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam!