This operation activates one externally staged 32-byte key while retaining all existing keys for historical decryption. It never provisions the target Secret and is not part of the default Cluster Kustomization.

Before creating the Job:

Read the current target Secret UID, active key ID, generation and catalog digest through the reviewed deployment ceremony.
Ask the deployment Secret manager or KMS boundary to create the immutable ql3-prompt-output-key-rotation-material Secret in qinglong3-system. It must contain exactly one 32-byte material.bin data item. Do not commit it, use stringData, or grant this Job API access to that staging Secret.
Copy command.example.yaml into private configuration and replace every placeholder. The new key ID must be unique. Keep the fixed staged-material path unchanged.
Patch network-policy.yaml with the real Kubernetes API server /32 and TCP port by using api-server-egress-patch.example.yaml; never widen it to a public or cluster-wide CIDR. Replace the deny-canary placeholder only with a separately proven reachable in-cluster canary.
Pin the independently verified Cluster Admin image digest, apply the private command ConfigMap and staged Secret, then create the resources in base.

The process first appends a content-free PostgreSQL preparation through the dedicated ql3_ai_maintenance role, then performs the target Secret CAS, and finally appends the completion. Reusing the same command and staged material after any process or response-loss window converges from those durable facts. The CloudNativePG overlay binds only the writer endpoint, maintenance identity, private CA and exact database Pod egress.

The ServiceAccount can get/update only ql3-prompt-output-keyring and create SelfSubjectAccessReview requests. The Pod and ServiceAccount disable automatic tokens; a tokenless init container proves API allow plus deny-canary blocking before the main container receives a 600-second projected token. The material and command are separate read-only single-file subPath mounts. A lost update response is resolved by rereading the target and comparing the exact staged material proof; blind Job retries remain disabled.

Delete the completed Job, command ConfigMap and staged material Secret after retaining content-free evidence. First target-Secret provision, KMS wrapping and lost-key recovery remain separate release gates.

The opt-in product evidence gate is:

QL3_PROMPT_OUTPUT_KEY_ROTATION_KUBERNETES_LIVE=1 \
QL3_CNPG_OPERATOR_MANIFEST_FILE=/owner-private/cloudnative-pg-1.30.0.yaml \
pnpm test:prompt-output-key-rotation-kubernetes-live:ql3

It creates a random three-node K3s/Flannel fixture, runs CloudNativePG with three PostgreSQL instances, applies the main and AI migrations, executes the rotation twice, and proves the same tokenless runtime Pod reloads generation 1→2 while retaining historical Artifact decrypt. It also requires one target Secret resourceVersion change, one content-free preparation/completion pair, exact RBAC/egress, a read-only 0440 staging projection and zero fixture/image residue. This single-host, dynamic local-path fixture is not production CSI, control-plane HA, infrastructure STONITH, KMS wrapping or HSM evidence.