KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)

💖 kubectl apply 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the kubernetes manual page 🦋 this one is the iconic kubectl apply entry, originally jotted down by Eric Paris back in Jan 2015, and it is genuinely one of the most-used little spells in the whole cluster. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, we're gonna go through every single flag, no skips, no cap.

---

✨ NAME ✨

kubectl apply — Apply a configuration to a resource by file name or stdin 💅

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kubectl apply [OPTIONS]

---

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

So basically: you apply a configuration to a resource by file name or stdin. The resource name must be specified, okay? No vibes-only applies, you have to say what.

Here's the tea tho: this resource will be created if it doesn't exist yet. But to use apply, you always gotta create the resource initially with either apply or create --save-config. That's the rule, periodt. 🎀

JSON and YAML formats are accepted. Both. She's flexible like that. ✨

Alpha Disclaimer: the --prune functionality is not yet complete. Do not use unless you are aware of what the current state is. See https://issues.k8s.io/34274. 💀 like genuinely bestie, read that first.

---

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --all=false — Select all resources in the namespace of the specified resource types.
• --allow-missing-template-keys=true — If true, ignore any errors in templates when a field or map key is missing in the template. Only applies to golang and jsonpath output formats.
• --cascade="background" — Must be "background", "orphan", or "foreground". Selects the deletion cascading strategy for the dependents (e.g. Pods created by a ReplicationController). Defaults to background.
• --dry-run="none" — Must be "none", "server", or "client". If client strategy, only print the object that would be sent, without sending it. If server strategy, submit server-side request without persisting the resource. 👀 a little look-don't-touch moment.
• --field-manager="kubectl-client-side-apply" — Name of the manager used to track field ownership.
• -f, --filename=[] — The files, directories or URLs that contain the configurations to apply.
• --force=false — If true, immediately remove resources from API and bypass graceful deletion. Note that immediate deletion of some resources may result in inconsistency or data loss and requires confirmation. 😭 be careful.
• --force-conflicts=false — If true, server-side apply will force the changes against conflicts. 💥
• --grace-period=-1 — Period of time in seconds given to the resource to terminate gracefully. Ignored if negative. Set to 1 for immediate shutdown. Can only be set to 0 when --force is true (force deletion).
• -k, --kustomize="" — Process a kustomization directory. This flag can't be used together with -f or -R. 🚫 pick a lane bestie.
• --openapi-patch=true — If true, use openapi to calculate diff when the openapi presents and the resource can be found in the openapi spec. Otherwise, fall back to use baked-in types.
• -o, --output="" — Output format. One of: (json, yaml, kyaml, name, go-template, go-template-file, template, templatefile, jsonpath, jsonpath-as-json, jsonpath-file).
• --overwrite=true — Automatically resolve conflicts between the modified and live configuration by using values from the modified configuration.
• --prune=false — Automatically delete resource objects, that do not appear in the configs and are created by either apply or create --save-config. Should be used with either -l or --all. ✂️ (still alpha, remember!)
• --prune-allowlist=[] — Overwrite the default allowlist with for --prune.
• --record=false — Record current kubectl command in the resource annotation. If set to false, do not record the command. If set to true, record the command. If not set, default to updating the existing annotation value only if one already exists.
• -R, --recursive=false — Process the directory used in -f, --filename recursively. Useful when you want to manage related manifests organized within the same directory. 🗂️
• -l, --selector="" — Selector (label query) to filter on, supports '=', '==', '!=', 'in', 'notin'. (e.g. -l key1=value1,key2=value2,key3 in (value3)). Matching objects must satisfy all of the specified label constraints.
• --server-side=false — If true, apply runs in the server instead of the client.
• --show-managed-fields=false — If true, keep the managedFields when printing objects in JSON or YAML format.
• --subresource="" — If specified, apply will operate on the subresource of the requested object. Only allowed when using --server-side.
• --template="" — Template string or path to template file to use when -o=go-template, -o=go-template-file. The template format is golang templates [http://golang.org/pkg/text/template/#pkg-overview].
• --timeout=0s — The length of time to wait before giving up on a delete, zero means determine a timeout from the size of the object.
• --validate="strict" — Must be one of: strict (or true), warn, ignore (or false). "true" or "strict" will use a schema to validate the input and fail the request if invalid. It will perform server side validation if ServerSideFieldValidation is enabled on the api-server, but will fall back to less reliable client-side validation if not. "warn" will warn about unknown or duplicate fields without blocking the request if server-side field validation is enabled on the API server, and behave as "ignore" otherwise. "false" or "ignore" will not perform any schema validation, silently dropping any unknown or duplicate fields.
• --wait=false — If true, wait for resources to be gone before returning. This waits for finalizers. ⏳

---

🫶 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS 🫶

these ones come from the parent, she's just borrowing them ✨

• --as="" — Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.
• --as-group=[] — Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.
• --as-uid="" — UID to impersonate for the operation.
• --as-user-extra=[] — User extras to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple values for the same key.
• --cache-dir="/home/username/.kube/cache" — Default cache directory.
• --certificate-authority="" — Path to a cert file for the certificate authority.
• --client-certificate="" — Path to a client certificate file for TLS.
• --client-key="" — Path to a client key file for TLS.
• --cluster="" — The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use.
• --context="" — The name of the kubeconfig context to use.
• --disable-compression=false — If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server.
• --insecure-skip-tls-verify=false — If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure. 😬 bestie no.
• --kubeconfig="" — Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.
• --kuberc="" — Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.
• --match-server-version=false — Require server version to match client version.
• -n, --namespace="" — If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request.
• --password="" — Password for basic authentication to the API server.
• --profile="none" — Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex|trace).
• --profile-output="profile.pprof" — Name of the file to write the profile to.
• --proxy-url="" — Proxy URL to use for requests to the API server.
• --request-timeout="0" — The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests.
• -s, --server="" — The address and port of the Kubernetes API server.
• --tls-server-name="" — Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used.
• --token="" — Bearer token for authentication to the API server.
• --user="" — The name of the kubeconfig user to use.
• --username="" — Username for basic authentication to the API server.
• --version=false — --version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version.
• --warnings-as-errors=false — Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code.

---

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

okay this part is literally the best part, watch and learn 👑

# Apply the configuration in pod.json to a pod
kubectl apply -f ./pod.json

# Apply resources from a directory containing kustomization.yaml - e.g. dir/kustomization.yaml
kubectl apply -k dir/

# Apply the JSON passed into stdin to a pod
cat pod.json | kubectl apply -f -

# Apply the configuration from all files that end with '.json'
kubectl apply -f '*.json'

# Note: --prune is still in Alpha
# Apply the configuration in manifest.yaml that matches label app=nginx and delete all other resources that are not in the file and match label app=nginx
kubectl apply --prune -f manifest.yaml -l app=nginx

# Apply the configuration in manifest.yaml and delete all the other config maps that are not in the file
kubectl apply --prune -f manifest.yaml --all --prune-allowlist=core/v1/ConfigMap

---

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• kubectl(1)
• kubectl-apply-edit-last-applied(1)
• kubectl-apply-set-last-applied(1)
• kubectl-apply-view-last-applied(1)

---

👑 HISTORY 👑

January 2015, Originally compiled by Eric Paris (eparis at redhat dot com) based on the kubernetes source material, but hopefully they have been automatically generated since! 💖

---

and that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 🫶 this was the kubernetes manual, User section, dated Jan 2015 — go forth and apply responsibly, mwah 💅✨