K9s - Kubernetes CLI To Manage Your Clusters In Style

K9s is a terminal-based UI to interact with Kubernetes clusters. It continually watches for changes and provides commands to interact with observed resources.

Installation

# macOS/Homebrew
brew install derailed/k9s/k9s
 
# Linux
sudo apt install ./k9s_linux_amd64.deb  # or
sudo dnf install k9s
 
# Via Go
go install github.com/derailed/k9s@latest

Multi-Cluster Management

Switching Contexts

K9s uses your standard kubeconfig. Switch between clusters using:

:ctx              # Opens context picker
:ctx <context>    # Switch directly to a context

Or from the command line:

k9s --context <context-name>

Per-Context Configuration

K9s stores cluster-specific configs in ~/.local/share/k9s/clusters/<cluster>/<context>/config.yaml:

k9s:
  cluster: my-cluster
  readOnly: false
  namespace:
    active: default
    lockFavorites: false
    favorites:
    - kube-system
    - default
    - production
  view:
    active: po  # default view for this context
  featureGates:
    nodeShell: false
  portForwardAddress: localhost

Namespace Management

Switching Namespaces

:ns              # Opens namespace picker
:ns <namespace>  # Switch directly to a namespace

Namespace Favorites

Set favorite namespaces per context to pin commonly used ones:

k9s:
  namespace:
    active: default
    favorites:
    - kube-system
    - default
    - production
    lockFavorites: true  # Prevent k9s from auto-updating favorites

Essential Workflows

Command	Description
`:`	Enter command mode
`:`pod	View pods
`:`dp	View deployments
`:`svc	View services
`:`ns	Switch namespace
`:`ctx	Switch context
`:`xray	XRay view (e.g., `xray deploy`)
`:`pulses	Cluster pulses dashboard
`/`	Filter mode
`?`	Show all keybindings

Logs

Key	Description
`l`	View logs
`p`	Previous logs
`t`	Toggle timestamps
`w`	Toggle wrap
`f`	Toggle fullscreen
`shift-f`	Port-forward + logs

Container Interaction

Key	Description
`s`	Shell into container
`a`	Attach to container
`c`	Copy container name

Resource Management

Key	Description
`d`	Describe resource
`e`	Edit resource
`y`	View YAML
`ctrl-d`	Delete (with confirmation)
`ctrl-k`	Kill (immediate)
`r`	Restart (Deployments/DaemonSets/StatefulSets)
`b`	Benchmark HTTP service

Port Forwards

Key	Description
`f`	Show active port-forwards
`shift-f`	Create port-forward
`ctrl-z`	Toggle faults display

Filtering

/<filter>              # Regex filter
/!<filter>             # Inverse regex (exclude matches)
/-l <label-selector>   # Filter by label
/-f <filter>           # Fuzzy find

Examples:

:pod /fred              # Pods matching "fred"
:pod app=fred,env=dev   # Pods with labels app=fred AND env=dev
:pod @ctx1              # Pods in context ctx1

Custom Hotkeys

Create ~/.config/k9s/hotkeys.yaml:

hotKeys:
  shift-0:
    shortCut: Shift-0
    description: View pods
    command: pods
  shift-1:
    shortCut: Shift-1
    description: View deployments
    command: dp
  shift-2:
    shortCut: Shift-2
    description: XRay deployments
    command: xray deploy

Custom Aliases

Create ~/.config/k9s/aliases.yaml:

aliases:
  pp: v1/pods
  dep: apps/v1/deployments
  fred: pod default app=fred  # Pre-filtered alias

Configuration

Main config at ~/.config/k9s/config.yaml:

k9s:
  refreshRate: 2
  readOnly: false
  ui:
    enableMouse: true
    headless: false
  logger:
    tail: 200
    buffer: 5000
    sinceSeconds: 300
    showTime: false
    textWrap: false

Node Shell

Enable nodeShell feature gate per context:

k9s:
  featureGates:
    nodeShell: true

This allows shelling directly into cluster nodes (uses a helper pod).

Port Forward Annotations

Annotate pods for automatic port-forwards:

metadata:
  annotations:
    k9scli.io/auto-port-forwards: "container-name::local-port:container-port"
    k9scli.io/port-forwards: "container-name::local-port:container-port"

Read-Only Mode

k9s --readonly

Or per-context in config:

k9s:
  readOnly: true

cloudnative wiki

Explorer

k9s