Patent attributes
Securing pods in a container orchestration environment is provided. A container runtime interface command is verified to perform an orchestration action on a set of containers comprising an application workload that corresponds to a service based on matching the container runtime interface command to a rule contained in a trusted execution environment contract included in a pod sandbox virtual machine of a trusted execution environment. It is determined whether the container runtime interface command to perform the orchestration action on the set of containers is valid based finding a matching rule in the trusted execution environment contract. In response to determining that the container runtime interface command to perform the orchestration action on the set of containers is valid, the container runtime interface command is executed to perform the orchestration action on the set of containers in the pod sandbox virtual machine of the trusted execution environment.