KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)

👑 kubectl — the manual page, but make it make sense

okay bestie, welcome to kubectl(1) — that's section 1 of the kubernetes manual, the one you actually open when you're staring at a terminal at 2am and your pods are doing something unhinged. 💅

---

✨ NAME ✨

kubectl — kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

kubectl [OPTIONS]

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager. that's the whole job description, and honestly? it ate. 👑

want the full lore? it lives here:

https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/

no cap, that link is the mothership. go read it when you want the deep dive, because this page is just the global flags that apply to basically everything. 🦋

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

these are the flags that ride along with literally every kubectl command. memorize the ones you use, look up the ones you don't. 🌸

• --as="" — username to impersonate for the operation. could be a regular user, could be a service account chillin' in a namespace. shapeshifter energy. 🧚
• --as-group=[] — group to impersonate for the operation. repeat this flag to stack up multiple groups, like friendship bracelets but for RBAC.
• --as-uid="" — UID to impersonate for the operation. yep, you can cosplay as a specific UID now.
• --as-user-extra=[] — user extras to impersonate for the operation. repeat the flag to give multiple values for the same key. very "and another thing" of you.
• --cache-dir="/home/username/.kube/cache" — default cache directory. this is where the vibes get cached. 🎀
• --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. switching contexts is literally the main character moment of every k8s story.
• --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. please. this one is a warning, not a personality trait. insecure HTTPS is not the slay you think it is.

• --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. strict queen behavior. 💅
• -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. zero = the "we'll be here forever and that's fine" setting. 😭
• -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. turning a warning into a whole crisis. iconic, honestly. 💀

---

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

the whole extended universe, fr fr. go follow them all: 🌈

• kubectl-alpha(1)
• kubectl-annotate(1)
• kubectl-api-resources(1)
• kubectl-api-versions(1)
• kubectl-apply(1)
• kubectl-attach(1)
• kubectl-auth(1)
• kubectl-autoscale(1)
• kubectl-certificate(1)
• kubectl-cluster-info(1)
• kubectl-completion(1)
• kubectl-config(1)
• kubectl-cordon(1)
• kubectl-cp(1)
• kubectl-create(1)
• kubectl-debug(1)
• kubectl-delete(1)
• kubectl-describe(1)
• kubectl-diff(1)
• kubectl-drain(1)
• kubectl-edit(1)
• kubectl-events(1)
• kubectl-exec(1)
• kubectl-explain(1)
• kubectl-expose(1)
• kubectl-get(1)
• kubectl-kuberc(1)
• kubectl-kustomize(1)
• kubectl-label(1)
• kubectl-logs(1)
• kubectl-options(1)
• kubectl-patch(1)
• kubectl-plugin(1)
• kubectl-port-forward(1)
• kubectl-proxy(1)
• kubectl-replace(1)
• kubectl-rollout(1)
• kubectl-run(1)
• kubectl-scale(1)
• kubectl-set(1)
• kubectl-taint(1)
• kubectl-top(1)
• kubectl-uncordon(1)
• kubectl-version(1)
• kubectl-wait(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. this is the Manuals / User version of the KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) page, dated Jan 2015 — so like, vintage, but make it cluster management. 💖 slay responsibly. ✨