diff --git a/kata-deploy/action/Dockerfile b/kata-deploy/action/Dockerfile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7047680f64
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/action/Dockerfile
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+# Copyright (c) 2019 Intel Corporation
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+FROM microsoft/azure-cli:latest
+
+LABEL com.github.actions.name="Test kata-deploy in an AKS cluster"
+LABEL com.github.actions.description="Test kata-deploy in an AKS cluster"
+
+# Default to latest validated AKS-engine version
+ARG AKS_ENGINE_VER="v0.42.0"
+ARG ARCH=amd64
+
+ENV GITHUB_ACTION_NAME="Test kata-deploy in an AKS cluster"
+
+# When run, we expect the caller (GitHub Action workflow) to provide the
+# PKG_SHA environment variable
+ENV PKG_SHA=HEAD
+
+RUN curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$(curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/${ARCH}/kubectl \
+  && chmod +x ./kubectl \
+  && mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
+
+RUN curl -LO https://github.com/Azure/aks-engine/releases/download/${AKS_ENGINE_VER}/aks-engine-${AKS_ENGINE_VER}-linux-${ARCH}.tar.gz \
+  && tar xvf aks-engine-${AKS_ENGINE_VER}-linux-${ARCH}.tar.gz \
+  && mv aks-engine-${AKS_ENGINE_VER}-linux-${ARCH}/aks-engine /usr/local/bin/aks-engine \
+  && rm aks-engine-${AKS_ENGINE_VER}-linux-${ARCH}.tar.gz
+
+COPY kubernetes-containerd.json /
+COPY setup-aks.sh test-kata.sh entrypoint.sh /
+
+ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]
diff --git a/kata-deploy/action/action.yaml b/kata-deploy/action/action.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..b894fecaa4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/action/action.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+# action.yml
+name: 'kata-deploy'
+description: 'test Kata container image in AKS'
+inputs:
+  packaging-sha:
+    description: 'SHA we are using for pulling packaing manifests'
+    required: true
+    default: ''
+runs:
+  using: 'docker'
+  image: 'Dockerfile'
+  args:
+    - ${{ inputs.packaging-sha }}
diff --git a/kata-deploy/action/entrypoint.sh b/kata-deploy/action/entrypoint.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..899bada6f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/action/entrypoint.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+# Copyright (c) 2018 Intel Corporation
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+#
+set -o errexit
+set -o pipefail
+set -o nounset
+
+# This entrypoint expects an environment variable, PKG_SHA, to be
+# within the container runtime. A default is provided in the Dockerfile,
+# but we expect the caller to pass this into the container run (ie docker run -e PKG_SHA=foo ...)
+echo "provided package reference: ${PKG_SHA}"
+
+# Since this is the entrypoint for the container image, we know that the AKS and Kata setup/testing
+# scripts are located at root.
+source /setup-aks.sh
+source /test-kata.sh 
+
+trap destroy_aks EXIT
+
+setup_aks
+test_kata
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/kata-deploy/action/kubernetes-containerd.json b/kata-deploy/action/kubernetes-containerd.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1b92e04f99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/action/kubernetes-containerd.json
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+{
+  "apiVersion": "vlabs",
+  "properties": {
+    "orchestratorProfile": {
+      "orchestratorType": "Kubernetes",
+      "orchestratorVersion": "1.15.4",
+      "kubernetesConfig": {
+        "networkPlugin": "flannel",
+        "containerRuntime": "containerd",
+        "containerdVersion": "1.2.4"
+      }
+    },
+    "masterProfile": {
+      "count": 1,
+      "dnsPrefix": "",
+      "vmSize": "Standard_D2_v2"
+    },
+    "agentPoolProfiles": [
+      {
+        "name": "agentpool",
+        "count": 1,
+        "vmSize": "Standard_D4s_v3",
+        "availabilityProfile": "AvailabilitySet"
+      }
+    ],
+    "linuxProfile": {
+      "adminUsername": "azureuser",
+      "ssh": {
+        "publicKeys": [
+          {
+            "keyData": ""
+          }
+        ]
+      }
+    },
+    "servicePrincipalProfile": {
+      "clientId": "",
+      "secret": ""
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/kata-deploy/action/setup-aks.sh b/kata-deploy/action/setup-aks.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..967f500b79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/action/setup-aks.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+# Copyright (c) 2019 Intel Corporation
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+#
+set -o errexit
+set -o pipefail
+set -o nounset
+
+export AZURE_HTTP_USER_AGENT="GITHUBACTIONS_${GITHUB_ACTION_NAME}_${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}"
+
+LOCATION=${LOCATION:-westus2}
+DNS_PREFIX=${DNS_PREFIX:-kata-deploy-${GITHUB_SHA:0:10}}
+CLUSTER_CONFIG=${CLUSTER_CONFIG:-/kubernetes-containerd.json}
+
+function die() {
+    msg="$*"
+    echo "ERROR: $msg" >&2
+    exit 1
+}
+
+function destroy_aks() {
+    set +x
+
+    export KUBECONFIG="_output/$DNS_PREFIX/kubeconfig/kubeconfig.$LOCATION.json"
+    kubectl describe ds -n kube-system kata-deploy || true
+    kubectl describe ds -n kube-system kata-cleanup || true
+
+    az login --service-principal -u "$AZ_APPID" -p "$AZ_PASSWORD" --tenant "$AZ_TENANT_ID"
+    az group delete --name "$DNS_PREFIX" --yes --no-wait
+    az logout
+}
+
+function setup_aks() {
+    [[ -z "$AZ_APPID" ]] && die "no Azure service principal ID provided"
+    [[ -z "$AZ_PASSWORD" ]] && die "no Azure service principal secret provided"
+    [[ -z "$AZ_SUBSCRIPTION_ID" ]] && die "no Azure subscription ID provided"
+    [[ -z "$AZ_TENANT_ID" ]] && die "no Azure tenant ID provided"
+
+    aks-engine deploy --subscription-id "$AZ_SUBSCRIPTION_ID" \
+        --client-id "$AZ_APPID" --client-secret "$AZ_PASSWORD" \
+        --location "$LOCATION" --dns-prefix "$DNS_PREFIX" \
+        --api-model "$CLUSTER_CONFIG" --force-overwrite
+
+    export KUBECONFIG="_output/$DNS_PREFIX/kubeconfig/kubeconfig.$LOCATION.json"
+
+    # wait for the cluster to be settled:
+    kubectl wait --timeout=10m --for=condition=Ready --all nodes
+
+    # make sure coredns is up before moving forward:
+    kubectl wait --timeout=5m -n kube-system --for=condition=Available deployment.extensions/coredns
+}
diff --git a/kata-deploy/action/test-kata.sh b/kata-deploy/action/test-kata.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..7f0dcde1bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/action/test-kata.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+# Copyright (c) 2019 Intel Corporation
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+#
+
+set -o errexit
+set -o pipefail
+set -o nounset
+
+function die() {
+    msg="$*"
+    echo "ERROR: $msg" >&2
+    exit 1
+}
+
+function waitForProcess() {
+    wait_time="$1"
+    sleep_time="$2"
+    cmd="$3"
+    while [ "$wait_time" -gt 0 ]; do
+        if eval "$cmd"; then
+            return 0
+        else
+            echo "waiting"
+            sleep "$sleep_time"
+            wait_time=$((wait_time-sleep_time))
+        fi
+    done
+    return 1
+}
+
+# waitForLabelRemoval will wait for the kata-runtime labels to removed until a given
+# timeout expires
+function waitForLabelRemoval() {
+    wait_time="$1"
+    sleep_time="$2"
+
+    while [[ "$wait_time" -gt 0 ]]; do
+        # if a node is found which matches node-select, the output will include a column for node name,
+        # NAME. Let's look for that 
+        if [[ -z $(kubectl get nodes --selector katacontainers.io/kata-runtime | grep NAME) ]]
+        then
+            return 0
+        else
+            echo "waiting for kata-runtime label to be removed"
+            sleep "$sleep_time"
+            wait_time=$((wait_time-sleep_time))
+        fi
+    done
+
+    echo "failed to cleanup"
+    return 1
+}
+
+
+function run_test() {
+    PKG_SHA=$1
+    YAMLPATH="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/amshinde/kata-packaging/$PKG_SHA/kata-deploy"
+    echo "verify connectivity with a pod using Kata"
+
+    deployment=""
+    busybox_pod="test-nginx"
+    busybox_image="busybox"
+    cmd="kubectl get pods | grep $busybox_pod | grep Completed"
+    wait_time=120
+    sleep_time=3
+
+    configurations=("nginx-deployment-qemu" "nginx-deployment-qemu-virtiofs")
+    for deployment in "${configurations[@]}"; do
+        # start the kata pod:
+        kubectl apply -f "$YAMLPATH/examples/${deployment}.yaml"
+
+      # in case the control plane is slow, give it a few seconds to accept the yaml, otherwise
+      # our 'wait' for deployment status will fail to find the deployment at all
+      sleep 3 
+
+      kubectl wait --timeout=5m --for=condition=Available deployment/${deployment}
+      kubectl expose deployment/${deployment}
+
+      # test pod connectivity:
+      kubectl run $busybox_pod --restart=Never --image="$busybox_image" -- wget --timeout=5 "$deployment"
+      waitForProcess "$wait_time" "$sleep_time" "$cmd"
+      kubectl logs "$busybox_pod" | grep "index.html"
+      kubectl describe pod "$busybox_pod"
+
+      # cleanup:
+      kubectl delete deployment "$deployment"
+      kubectl delete service "$deployment"
+      kubectl delete pod "$busybox_pod"
+  done
+}
+
+
+function test_kata() {
+    set -x
+
+    [[ -z "$PKG_SHA" ]] && die "no PKG_SHA provided"
+    echo "$PKG_SHA"
+
+    #kubectl all the things
+    kubectl get pods,nodes --all-namespaces
+
+    YAMLPATH="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/amshinde/kata-packaging/$PKG_SHA/kata-deploy"
+
+    kubectl apply -f "$YAMLPATH/kata-rbac.yaml"
+
+    # apply runtime classes:
+    kubectl apply -f "$YAMLPATH/k8s-1.14/kata-qemu-runtimeClass.yaml"
+    kubectl apply -f "$YAMLPATH/k8s-1.14/kata-qemu-virtiofs-runtimeClass.yaml"
+
+    kubectl get runtimeclasses
+
+    curl -LO "$YAMLPATH/kata-deploy.yaml"
+    curl -LO "$YAMLPATH/kata-cleanup.yaml"
+
+    # update deployment daemonset to utilize the container under test:
+    sed -i "s#katadocker/kata-deploy#katadocker/kata-deploy-ci:${PKG_SHA}#g" kata-deploy.yaml
+    sed -i "s#katadocker/kata-deploy#katadocker/kata-deploy-ci:${PKG_SHA}#g" kata-cleanup.yaml
+
+    cat kata-deploy.yaml
+
+    # deploy kata:
+    kubectl apply -f kata-deploy.yaml
+
+    # in case the control plane is slow, give it a few seconds to accept the yaml, otherwise
+    # our 'wait' for deployment status will fail to find the deployment at all. If it can't persist
+    # the daemonset to etcd in 30 seconds... then we'll fail.
+    sleep 30
+
+    # wait for kata-deploy to be up
+    kubectl -n kube-system wait --timeout=10m --for=condition=Ready -l name=kata-deploy pod
+
+    # show running pods, and labels of nodes
+    kubectl get pods,nodes --all-namespaces --show-labels
+
+    run_test $PKG_SHA
+
+    kubectl get pods,nodes --show-labels
+
+    # Remove Kata
+    kubectl delete -f kata-deploy.yaml
+    kubectl -n kube-system wait --timeout=10m --for=delete -l name=kata-deploy pod
+
+    kubectl get pods,nodes --show-labels
+
+    kubectl apply -f kata-cleanup.yaml
+
+    # The cleanup daemonset will run a single time, since it will clear the node-label. Thus, its difficult to
+    # check the daemonset's status for completion. instead, let's wait until the kata-runtime labels are removed
+    # from all of the worker nodes. If this doesn't happen in 45 seconds, let's fail
+    timeout=45
+    sleeptime=1
+    waitForLabelRemoval $timeout $sleeptime
+
+    kubectl delete -f kata-cleanup.yaml
+
+    rm kata-cleanup.yaml
+    rm kata-deploy.yaml
+
+    set +x
+}
diff --git a/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-fc.yaml b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-fc.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2053e0dee5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-fc.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+apiVersion: apps/v1
+kind: Deployment
+metadata:
+  name: nginx-deployment-fc
+spec:
+  selector:
+    matchLabels:
+      app: nginx
+  replicas: 2
+  template:
+    metadata:
+      labels:
+        app: nginx
+    spec:
+      runtimeClassName: kata-fc
+      containers:
+      - name: nginx
+        image: nginx:1.14
+        ports:
+        - containerPort: 80
diff --git a/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-nemu.yaml b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-nemu.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..907e3c69d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-nemu.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+apiVersion: apps/v1
+kind: Deployment
+metadata:
+  name: nginx-deployment-nemu
+spec:
+  selector:
+    matchLabels:
+      app: nginx
+  replicas: 2
+  template:
+    metadata:
+      labels:
+        app: nginx
+    spec:
+      runtimeClassName: kata-nemu
+      containers:
+      - name: nginx
+        image: nginx:1.14
+        ports:
+        - containerPort: 80
diff --git a/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-qemu-virtiofs.yaml b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-qemu-virtiofs.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..06bf7d4497
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-qemu-virtiofs.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+apiVersion: apps/v1
+kind: Deployment
+metadata:
+  name: nginx-deployment-qemu-virtiofs
+spec:
+  selector:
+    matchLabels:
+      app: nginx
+  replicas: 2
+  template:
+    metadata:
+      labels:
+        app: nginx
+    spec:
+      runtimeClassName: kata-qemu-virtiofs
+      containers:
+      - name: nginx
+        image: nginx:1.14
+        ports:
+        - containerPort: 80
diff --git a/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-qemu.yaml b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-qemu.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..467c99e91a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kata-deploy/examples/nginx-deployment-qemu.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+apiVersion: apps/v1
+kind: Deployment
+metadata:
+  name: nginx-deployment-qemu
+spec:
+  selector:
+    matchLabels:
+      app: nginx
+  replicas: 2
+  template:
+    metadata:
+      labels:
+        app: nginx
+    spec:
+      runtimeClassName: kata-qemu
+      containers:
+      - name: nginx
+        image: nginx:1.14
+        ports:
+        - containerPort: 80