In modern platform engineering, managing fleets of Kubernetes clusters across clouds, on-premises datacenters, and edge devices presents operational sprawl, inconsistent tooling, and lock-in challenges. k0rdent is the first fully open-source Distributed Container Management Environment (DCME) that transforms this complexity into a declarative, Kubernetes-native control plane. Platform architects can design and operate developer and workload platforms anywhere, at scale—with zero lock-in and 100% open source. In this session, you’ll learn how k0rdent leverages Kubernetes standards (ClusterAPI, CRDs, GitOps) to provide a single pane of glass for multi-cluster lifecycle management, service composition, and infrastructure automation. We’ll dive into k0rdent’s modular architecture, walk through a live demo of provisioning clusters and deploying services across heterogeneous environments, and explore how the community can contribute to its rapidly growing ecosystem