Multiple instances of a distributed application are run in a Kubernetes cluster. An updated version of the application must undergo some post-launch initialization before a production workload handled by the original version can be switched to the updated version. Accordingly, a temporary update-monitor pod is inserted into the cluster so that it can query the application as to its update status and report it to a log file. A script external to the cluster can read the log file to determine if initialization is complete. If so, the workload can be switched to the update instance. The temporary update-monitor pod is destroyed to free up resources and to ensure that it is does not pose a security vulnerability.