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kubectl/

Kubernetes CLI

Google / CNCF

Command line tool for communicating with Kubernetes cluster control planes.

Containers & OrchestrationJSON
01Agent Notes

kubectl follows a verb-noun pattern: `kubectl <verb> <resource-type> [name]`. Always pass `-o json` for machine-readable output. Common verbs: get, describe, create, apply, delete, edit, logs, exec. Resource types can be singular or plural: `pod`/`pods`, `service`/`services`. Use `--namespace` or `-n` to target a specific namespace, `--all-namespaces` or `-A` for all. `kubectl apply -f` is the standard declarative way to manage resources. For scripting, use `--dry-run=client -o yaml` to generate manifests without applying.


02Help Output
kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager. Find more information at: https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/ Basic Commands (Beginner): create Create a resource from a file or from stdin expose Take a replication controller, service, deployment or pod and expose it as a new Kubernetes service run Run a particular image on the cluster set Set specific features on objects Basic Commands (Intermediate): explain Get documentation for a resource get Display one or many resources edit Edit a resource on the server delete Delete resources by file names, stdin, resources and names, or by resources and label selector Deploy Commands: rollout Manage the rollout of a resource scale Set a new size for a deployment, replica set, or replication controller autoscale Auto-scale a deployment, replica set, stateful set, or replication controller Cluster Management Commands: certificate Modify certificate resources cluster-info Display cluster information top Display resource (CPU/memory) usage cordon Mark node as unschedulable uncordon Mark node as schedulable drain Drain node in preparation for maintenance taint Update the taints on one or more nodes Troubleshooting and Debugging Commands: describe Show details of a specific resource or group of resources logs Print the logs for a container in a pod attach Attach to a running container exec Execute a command in a container port-forward Forward one or more local ports to a pod proxy Run a proxy to the Kubernetes API server cp Copy files and directories to and from containers auth Inspect authorization debug Create debugging sessions for troubleshooting workloads and nodes events List events Advanced Commands: diff Diff the live version against a would-be applied version apply Apply a configuration to a resource by file name or stdin patch Update fields of a resource replace Replace a resource by file name or stdin wait Experimental: Wait for a specific condition on one or many resources kustomize Build a kustomization target from a directory or URL Settings Commands: label Update the labels on a resource annotate Update the annotations on a resource completion Output shell completion code for the specified shell (bash, zsh, fish, or powershell) Subcommands provided by plugins: Other Commands: api-resources Print the supported API resources on the server api-versions Print the supported API versions on the server, in the form of "group/version" config Modify kubeconfig files plugin Provides utilities for interacting with plugins version Print the client and server version information Usage: kubectl [flags] [options] Use "kubectl <command> --help" for more information about a given command. Use "kubectl options" for a list of global command-line options (applies to all commands).

03Global Flags
FlagTypeDescription
--namespacestringKubernetes namespace to target
--contextstringKubeconfig context to use
--kubeconfigstringPath to kubeconfig file
-oenum [json, yaml, wide, name, custom-columns, jsonpath]Output format

04Authentication
Methods
config-fileenvironment-variablesservice-account
Env vars
KUBECONFIG
Config files
~/.kube/config
Setupkubectl config set-cluster

05Install
brew install kubectl
Download binary →

06Capabilities
Reference
binarykubectl
checkkubectl version --client
authconfig-file, environment-variables, service-account
formatstext, yaml, wide, jsonpath, custom-columns, name
json flag-o json
version0.36.0-alpha.2