how to run a kubernetes cronjob with modified values at runtime - kubernetes

Question

So I have a kubernetes cronjob object set to run periodically.
NAME SCHEDULE SUSPEND ACTIVE LAST SCHEDULE AGE
ticketing-job-lifetime-manager 45 */4 * * * False 0 174m 25d
and I know how to call it manually:
# ticketing-job-manual-call will be the name of the job that runs
kubectl create job --from=cronjobs/ticketing-job-lifetime-manager ticketing-job-manual-call
BUT - what I want to do is call the job, but modify portions of it (shown below) before it is called. Specifically items.metadata.annotations and items.spec.jobTemplate.spec.containers.args.
If this is possible on-the-fly, I'd be over the moon. If it requires creating a temporary object, then I'd appreciate an approach to doing this that is robust, performant - and safe. Thanks!
apiVersion: v1
items:
- apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
annotations:
<annotation-1> <- want to modify these
<annotation-2>
..
<annotation-n>
creationTimestamp: "2022-05-03T13:24:49Z"
labels:
AccountID: foo
FooServiceAction: "true"
FooServiceManaged: "true"
CronName: foo
name: foo
namespace: my-namespace
resourceVersion: "298013999"
uid: 57b2-4612-88ef-a0d5e26c8
spec:
concurrencyPolicy: Replace
jobTemplate:
metadata:
annotations:
<annotation-1> <- want to modify these
<annotation-2>
..
<annotation-n>
creationTimestamp: null
labels:
AccountID: 7761777c38d93b
TicketServiceAction: "true"
TicketServiceManaged: "true"
CronName: ticketing-actions-7761777c38d93b-0
name: ticketing-actions-7761777c38d93b-0
namespace: rias
spec:
containers:
- args:
- --accountid=something <- want to modify these
- --faultzone=something
- --type=something
- --cronjobname=something
- --plans=something
command:
- ./ticketing-job
env:
- name: FOO_BAR <- may want to modify these
value: "false"
- name: FOO_BAZ
value: "true"

Answer 1

The way to think about this is that Kubernetes resources are defined (definitively) by YAML|JSON config files. A useful advantage to having config files is that these can be checked into source control; you automatically audit your work if you create unique files for each resource (for every change).
Kubernetes (kubectl) isn't optimized|designed to tweak Resources although you can use kubectl patch to update deployed Resources.
I encourage you to consider a better approach that is applicable to any Kubernetes resource (not just Job's) and this focuses on use YAML|JSON files as the way to represent state:
kubectl get the resource and output it as YAML|JSON (--output=json|yaml) persisting the result to a file (that could be source-controlled)
Mutate the file using any of many tools but preferably YAML|JSON processing tools (e.g. yq or jq)
kubectl create or kubectl apply the file that results that reflects the intended configuration of the new resource.
By way of example, assuming you use jq:
# Output 'ticketing-job-lifetime-manage' as a JSON file
kubectl get job/ticketing-job-lifetime-manage \
--namespace=${NAMESPACE} \
--output=json > ${PWD}/ticketing-job-lifetime-manage.json
# E.g. replace '.metadata.annotations' entirely
jq '.metadata.annotations=[{"foo":"x"},{"bar":"y"}]' \
${PWD}/${PWD}/ticketing-job-lifetime-manage.json \
> ${PWD}/${PWD}/new-job.json
# E.g. replace a specific container 'foo' specific 'args' key with value
jq '.spec.jobTemplate.spec.containers[]|select(.name=="foo").args["--key"]="value" \
${PWD}/${PWD}/new-job.json \
> ${PWD}/${PWD}/new-job.json
# Etc.
# Apply
kubectl create \
--filename=${PWD}/new-job.json \
--namespace=${NAMESPACE}
NOTE You can pipe the output from the kubectl get through jq and into kubectl create if you wish but it's useful to keep a file-based record of the resource.
Having to deal with YAML|JSON config file is a common issue with Kubernetes (and every other technology that uses them). There are other tools e.g. jsonnet and CUE that try to provide a more programmatic way to manage YAML|JSON.