From fb1d42c95a9a5383e843a9242b58f27e9d9eb420 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Karthikeyan Balasubramaniam <karthikeyan.b@circles.asia>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:21:33 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] fix: update verify.sh scripts to handle kubectl output and
 correct pod names

---
 exercises/01-pod-basics/verify.sh          |  2 +-
 exercises/02-multi-container-pod/verify.sh |  8 ++++----
 exercises/03-configmap-secret/verify.sh    | 19 ++++++++++---------
 exercises/04-rbac/verify.sh                | 16 ++++++++--------
 exercises/05-networkpolicy/verify.sh       |  6 +++---
 exercises/06-rolling-update/verify.sh      |  6 +++---
 exercises/07-helm/verify.sh                |  8 ++++----
 exercises/08-probes/verify.sh              |  4 ++--
 exercises/09-ingress-gateway/verify.sh     |  6 +++---
 exercises/10-security-pvc/verify.sh        |  4 ++--
 exercises/11-statefulset/verify.sh         | 10 +++++-----
 exercises/12-daemonset/verify.sh           |  6 +++---
 exercises/13-init-containers/verify.sh     |  6 +++---
 exercises/14-in-place-scaling/verify.sh    |  2 +-
 14 files changed, 52 insertions(+), 51 deletions(-)

diff --git a/exercises/01-pod-basics/verify.sh b/exercises/01-pod-basics/verify.sh
index e838c3f..9f0440d 100644
--- a/exercises/01-pod-basics/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/01-pod-basics/verify.sh
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ echo "Verifying Exercise 01 — Pod Basics"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
 # Check namespace exists
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check pod exists and is running
diff --git a/exercises/02-multi-container-pod/verify.sh b/exercises/02-multi-container-pod/verify.sh
index 10536eb..7118548 100644
--- a/exercises/02-multi-container-pod/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/02-multi-container-pod/verify.sh
@@ -24,23 +24,23 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 02 — Multi-Container Pod (Sidecar)"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 pod_phase=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
 check "Pod '$POD_NAME' is Running" "$([ "$pod_phase" = "Running" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check container count
-container_count=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w || echo 0)
+container_count=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].name} {.spec.initContainers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Pod has 2 containers" "$([ "$container_count" -eq 2 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check container names
-containers=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
+containers=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].name} {.spec.initContainers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
 check "Container 'app' exists" "$(echo "$containers" | grep -q 'app' && echo true || echo false)"
 check "Container 'log-agent' exists" "$(echo "$containers" | grep -q 'log-agent' && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check shared volume
-vol_count=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.volumes[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w || echo 0)
+vol_count=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.volumes[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Shared volume exists" "$([ "$vol_count" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check sidecar is producing logs
diff --git a/exercises/03-configmap-secret/verify.sh b/exercises/03-configmap-secret/verify.sh
index 767ab0a..2694655 100644
--- a/exercises/03-configmap-secret/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/03-configmap-secret/verify.sh
@@ -23,28 +23,29 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 03 — ConfigMap + Secret Injection"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check ConfigMap
-cm_exists=$(kubectl get configmap app-config -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+cm_exists=$(kubectl get configmap app-config -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "ConfigMap 'app-config' exists" "$cm_exists"
 
 # Check Secret
-sec_exists=$(kubectl get secret app-secret -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
-check "Secret 'app-secret' exists" "$sec_exists"
+sec_exists=$(kubectl get secret db-creds -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
+check "Secret 'db-creds' exists" "$sec_exists"
 
 # Check pod
-pod_phase=$(kubectl get pod config-pod -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
-check "Pod 'config-pod' is Running" "$([ "$pod_phase" = "Running" ] && echo true || echo false)"
+pod_phase=$(kubectl get pod config-app -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
+check "Pod 'config-app' is Running" "$([ "$pod_phase" = "Running" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check env vars from ConfigMap
-env_val=$(kubectl exec config-pod -n "$NAMESPACE" -- env 2>/dev/null | grep -c "APP_ENV\|LOG_LEVEL" || echo 0)
+env_val=$(kubectl exec config-app -n "$NAMESPACE" -- env 2>/dev/null | grep -E "DB_HOST|LOG_LEVEL" | wc -l | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "ConfigMap env vars injected" "$([ "$env_val" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
+
 # Check secret volume mount
-secret_mount=$(kubectl get pod config-pod -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[0].volumeMounts[*].mountPath}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
-check "Secret mounted as volume" "$(echo "$secret_mount" | grep -q '/etc/secret' && echo true || echo false)"
+secret_mount=$(kubectl get pod config-app -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[0].volumeMounts[*].mountPath}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
+check "Secret mounted as volume" "$(echo "$secret_mount" | grep -q '/etc/db-creds' && echo true || echo false)"
 
 echo ""
 echo "Result: $PASS passed, $FAIL failed out of $((PASS + FAIL)) checks"
diff --git a/exercises/04-rbac/verify.sh b/exercises/04-rbac/verify.sh
index 9597cce..594b0a7 100644
--- a/exercises/04-rbac/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/04-rbac/verify.sh
@@ -23,26 +23,26 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 04 — RBAC"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check ServiceAccount
-sa_exists=$(kubectl get serviceaccount app-sa -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+sa_exists=$(kubectl get serviceaccount app-sa -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "ServiceAccount 'app-sa' exists" "$sa_exists"
 
 # Check Role
-role_exists=$(kubectl get role pod-reader -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
-check "Role 'pod-reader' exists" "$role_exists"
+role_exists=$(kubectl get role pod-manager -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
+check "Role 'pod-manager' exists" "$role_exists"
 
 # Check RoleBinding
-rb_exists=$(kubectl get rolebinding read-pods -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
-check "RoleBinding 'read-pods' exists" "$rb_exists"
+rb_exists=$(kubectl get rolebinding app-sa-binding -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
+check "RoleBinding 'app-sa-binding' exists" "$rb_exists"
 
 # Check permissions
-can_get=$(kubectl auth can-i get pods --as=system:serviceaccount:"$NAMESPACE":app-sa -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null || echo "no")
+can_get=$(kubectl auth can-i get pods --as=system:serviceaccount:"$NAMESPACE":app-sa -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null || true)
 check "app-sa can get pods" "$([ "$can_get" = "yes" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
-can_delete=$(kubectl auth can-i delete pods --as=system:serviceaccount:"$NAMESPACE":app-sa -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null || echo "yes")
+can_delete=$(kubectl auth can-i delete pods --as=system:serviceaccount:"$NAMESPACE":app-sa -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null || true)
 check "app-sa cannot delete pods" "$([ "$can_delete" = "no" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 echo ""
diff --git a/exercises/05-networkpolicy/verify.sh b/exercises/05-networkpolicy/verify.sh
index da97a99..847e495 100644
--- a/exercises/05-networkpolicy/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/05-networkpolicy/verify.sh
@@ -23,11 +23,11 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 05 — NetworkPolicy"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check NetworkPolicy exists
-np_exists=$(kubectl get networkpolicy -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l || echo 0)
+np_exists=$(kubectl get networkpolicy -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "NetworkPolicy exists" "$([ "$np_exists" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check policy types include Ingress
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ check "Policy includes Ingress type" "$(echo "$policy_types" | grep -q 'Ingress'
 check "Policy includes Egress type" "$(echo "$policy_types" | grep -q 'Egress' && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check DNS egress rule (UDP 53)
-egress_port=$(kubectl get networkpolicy -n "$NAMESPACE" -o json 2>/dev/null | grep -c '"port": 53' || echo 0)
+egress_port=$(kubectl get networkpolicy -n "$NAMESPACE" -o json 2>/dev/null | grep -c '"port": 53' | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "DNS egress rule (port 53) present" "$([ "$egress_port" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 echo ""
diff --git a/exercises/06-rolling-update/verify.sh b/exercises/06-rolling-update/verify.sh
index bfd0492..165f5f8 100644
--- a/exercises/06-rolling-update/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/06-rolling-update/verify.sh
@@ -23,11 +23,11 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 06 — Deployment + Rolling Update + Rollback"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check deployment exists
-deploy_exists=$(kubectl get deployment webapp -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+deploy_exists=$(kubectl get deployment webapp -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Deployment 'webapp' exists" "$deploy_exists"
 
 # Check replicas
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ max_unavail=$(kubectl get deployment webapp -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.
 check "maxUnavailable is 0" "$([ "$max_unavail" = "0" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check rollout history has multiple revisions
-rev_count=$(kubectl rollout history deployment/webapp -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "^[0-9]" || echo 0)
+rev_count=$(kubectl rollout history deployment/webapp -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "^[0-9]" | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Rollout history has revisions" "$([ "$rev_count" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 echo ""
diff --git a/exercises/07-helm/verify.sh b/exercises/07-helm/verify.sh
index 6d7df3a..046d71f 100644
--- a/exercises/07-helm/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/07-helm/verify.sh
@@ -28,15 +28,15 @@ helm_exists=$(command -v helm &>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
 check "Helm CLI is installed" "$helm_exists"
 
 # Check bitnami repo
-repo_exists=$(helm repo list 2>/dev/null | grep -c bitnami || echo 0)
+repo_exists=$(helm repo list 2>/dev/null | grep -c bitnami | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Bitnami repo added" "$([ "$repo_exists" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check release exists
-release_exists=$(helm list -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "my-nginx" || echo 0)
-check "Release 'my-nginx' exists" "$([ "$release_exists" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
+release_exists=$(helm list -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "myredis" | tr -d ' ' || true)
+check "Release 'myredis' exists" "$([ "$release_exists" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check release status
-release_status=$(helm status my-nginx -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "deployed" || echo 0)
+release_status=$(helm status myredis -n "$NAMESPACE" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "deployed" | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Release is deployed" "$([ "$release_status" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 echo ""
diff --git a/exercises/08-probes/verify.sh b/exercises/08-probes/verify.sh
index d30eb49..59b97e7 100644
--- a/exercises/08-probes/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/08-probes/verify.sh
@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 08 — Probes"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
-POD_NAME="probe-pod"
+POD_NAME="probe-test"
 pod_phase=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_NAME" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
 check "Pod '$POD_NAME' is Running" "$([ "$pod_phase" = "Running" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
diff --git a/exercises/09-ingress-gateway/verify.sh b/exercises/09-ingress-gateway/verify.sh
index 47aba1a..9af4a45 100644
--- a/exercises/09-ingress-gateway/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/09-ingress-gateway/verify.sh
@@ -23,11 +23,11 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 09 — Ingress + Gateway API"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Task A — Ingress
-ingress_exists=$(kubectl get ingress -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l || echo 0)
+ingress_exists=$(kubectl get ingress -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Ingress resource exists" "$([ "$ingress_exists" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check Ingress has host-based routing
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ ingress_host=$(kubectl get ingress -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.
 check "Ingress has host rule" "$([ -n "$ingress_host" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Task B — Gateway API (may not be available in all clusters)
-httproute_exists=$(kubectl get httproute -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l || echo 0)
+httproute_exists=$(kubectl get httproute -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ' || true)
 if [ "$httproute_exists" -ge 1 ]; then
   check "HTTPRoute resource exists" "true"
 else
diff --git a/exercises/10-security-pvc/verify.sh b/exercises/10-security-pvc/verify.sh
index 076c021..762a4d5 100644
--- a/exercises/10-security-pvc/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/10-security-pvc/verify.sh
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 10 — SecurityContext + PVC"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Task A — SecurityContext
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ no_priv=$(kubectl get pod "$POD_A" -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.container
 check "allowPrivilegeEscalation is false" "$([ "$no_priv" = "false" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Task B — PVC
-pvc_exists=$(kubectl get pvc data-pvc -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+pvc_exists=$(kubectl get pvc data-pvc -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "PVC 'data-pvc' exists" "$pvc_exists"
 
 POD_B="writer"
diff --git a/exercises/11-statefulset/verify.sh b/exercises/11-statefulset/verify.sh
index 023369a..0e79303 100644
--- a/exercises/11-statefulset/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/11-statefulset/verify.sh
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 11 — StatefulSet"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check headless service
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ svc_cluster_ip=$(kubectl get service db-headless -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.
 check "Headless Service 'db-headless' exists (clusterIP: None)" "$([ "$svc_cluster_ip" = "None" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check StatefulSet
-sts_exists=$(kubectl get statefulset db -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+sts_exists=$(kubectl get statefulset db -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "StatefulSet 'db' exists" "$sts_exists"
 
 replicas=$(kubectl get statefulset db -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.replicas}' 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
@@ -49,9 +49,9 @@ check "Pod db-1 exists" "$([ "$pod1" = "db-1" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 check "Pod db-2 exists" "$([ "$pod2" = "db-2" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check PVCs
-pvc0=$(kubectl get pvc data-db-0 -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
-pvc1=$(kubectl get pvc data-db-1 -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
-pvc2=$(kubectl get pvc data-db-2 -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+pvc0=$(kubectl get pvc data-db-0 -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
+pvc1=$(kubectl get pvc data-db-1 -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
+pvc2=$(kubectl get pvc data-db-2 -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "PVC data-db-0 exists" "$pvc0"
 check "PVC data-db-1 exists" "$pvc1"
 check "PVC data-db-2 exists" "$pvc2"
diff --git a/exercises/12-daemonset/verify.sh b/exercises/12-daemonset/verify.sh
index de48b56..a51e48b 100644
--- a/exercises/12-daemonset/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/12-daemonset/verify.sh
@@ -23,11 +23,11 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 12 — DaemonSet"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Check DaemonSet exists
-ds_exists=$(kubectl get daemonset log-collector -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ds_exists=$(kubectl get daemonset log-collector -n "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "DaemonSet 'log-collector' exists" "$ds_exists"
 
 # Check desired = available
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ available=$(kubectl get daemonset log-collector -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.s
 check "All desired pods are available ($desired/$available)" "$([ "$desired" = "$available" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check node count matches pod count
-node_count=$(kubectl get nodes --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l || echo 0)
+node_count=$(kubectl get nodes --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "Pod count matches node count ($available nodes)" "$([ "$available" = "$node_count" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check host-logs volume mount
diff --git a/exercises/13-init-containers/verify.sh b/exercises/13-init-containers/verify.sh
index bb6bad3..e5e2496 100644
--- a/exercises/13-init-containers/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/13-init-containers/verify.sh
@@ -23,21 +23,21 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 13 — Init Containers"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 # Task A — web-app with init container
 pod_phase=$(kubectl get pod web-app -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
 check "Pod 'web-app' is Running" "$([ "$pod_phase" = "Running" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
-init_count=$(kubectl get pod web-app -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.initContainers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w || echo 0)
+init_count=$(kubectl get pod web-app -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.initContainers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "web-app has init container" "$([ "$init_count" -ge 1 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Task B — multi-init
 pod_b_phase=$(kubectl get pod multi-init -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")
 check "Pod 'multi-init' is Running" "$([ "$pod_b_phase" = "Running" ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
-init_b_count=$(kubectl get pod multi-init -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.initContainers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w || echo 0)
+init_b_count=$(kubectl get pod multi-init -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.spec.initContainers[*].name}' 2>/dev/null | wc -w | tr -d ' ' || true)
 check "multi-init has 2 init containers" "$([ "$init_b_count" -eq 2 ] && echo true || echo false)"
 
 # Check logs contain both config values
diff --git a/exercises/14-in-place-scaling/verify.sh b/exercises/14-in-place-scaling/verify.sh
index 5a02bc7..6cf29a0 100644
--- a/exercises/14-in-place-scaling/verify.sh
+++ b/exercises/14-in-place-scaling/verify.sh
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ check() {
 echo "Verifying Exercise 14 — In-Place Pod Vertical Scaling"
 echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
 
-ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers 2>/dev/null && echo true || echo false)
+ns_exists=$(kubectl get namespace "$NAMESPACE" --no-headers >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo true || echo false)
 check "Namespace '$NAMESPACE' exists" "$ns_exists"
 
 pod_phase=$(kubectl get pod resize-demo -n "$NAMESPACE" -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}' 2>/dev/null || echo "")