Requests and limits set a Pod's floor and cap
The cluster schedules on requests but enforces limits, so a container that sets only one side leaves a half-open contract. Requests-only pods schedule honestly but burst without bound, free to starve neighbors when they spike. Limits-only pods are capped at runtime yet scheduled as if they cost nothing, so the scheduler packs them densely until the node saturates. Either half-contract fails under pressure; the two numbers only work as a pair. ...