Docker / Kubernetes: Container killed with exit code 137 (OOMKilled)

State: Terminated, Reason: OOMKilled, Exit Code: 137. Container exceeded memory limit and was terminated by Linux kernel cgroup OOM killer.

Immediate Remediation

yaml

# In docker-compose.yml: Increase memory ceiling and add swap headroom:
services:
  worker:
    image: my-app:latest
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 2048M
        reservations:
          memory: 512M

# In Node.js containers: Cap V8 heap below container ceiling:
# ENV NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=1536"

Root Cause Analysis

The Linux kernel cgroup out-of-memory (OOM) killer terminated the container process after memory usage exceeded the hard container memory limit.

Verification & Guardrails

In Kubernetes, adjust resources.limits.memory in the Pod spec.
Ensure language runtimes (Java, Node V8) do not configure heap sizes larger than the container limit.

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