<p>Is there a configuration in Kubernetes horizontal pod autoscaling to specify a minimum delay for a pod to be running or created before scaling up/down?</p>
<p>For example with something like:</p>
<pre><code># I am looking for a flag like this
--horizontal-pod-autoscale-initial-upscale-delay=5m0s

# Similar to these existing flags
--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-downscale-delay=2m0s
--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-upscale-delay=2m0s
</code></pre>
<p>Having as a result:</p>
<ul>
<li>Wait for 5 min before any upscale occur</li>
<li>After 5 min, perform a downscale at most every 2 min</li>
</ul>
<p>I have a situation where a Pod consumes lots of resources on start-up for bootstrapping (which is expected) but I don't want it scaled during this time, and once bootstrap is done it may be eligible for autoscaling.</p>

Pierre B.
<p>This flag actually exists: <code>--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-cpu-initialization-period</code> 
In addition you need to consider the readiness delay: <code>--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-initial-readiness-delay</code> and the metric loop time, <code>--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-sync-period</code> to calculate the total (max/min/average) delay.</p>

<p>See <a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/horizontal-pod-autoscale/" rel="noreferrer">https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/horizontal-pod-autoscale/</a></p>
