Postgres Summit US2026

In containerized PostgreSQL deployments, adding or updating extensions has always meant a painful cycle: rebuild your image, test it thoroughly, and redeploy your clusters with the new image. CloudNativePG's Image Volume feature streamlines this process—add extensions by simply declaring them in your CloudNativePG Cluster manifest, eliminating the image rebuild cycle and managing extensions independently from your core database image.

This innovation works by connecting two powerful features: Kubernetes Image Volumes and PostgreSQL's extension_control_path (introduced in PostgreSQL 18, with contributions from the CloudNativePG community). By bridging these technologies, CloudNativePG brings a fundamentally new approach to extension management in cloud-native environments.

In this talk, you'll learn: - How CloudNativePG connects Kubernetes Image Volumes with PostgreSQL's extension_control_path to enable dynamic extension loading - Building standardized extension container images using CloudNativePG postgres-extensions-containers framework - Loading extensions on-demand into running PostgreSQL clusters without rebuilding core database images - Managing extension lifecycles independently from your database images - Real-world deployment patterns for popular extensions (pgvector, PostGIS, TimescaleDB, etc.) - Security considerations and best practices for production environments