kubectl cheatsheet.

Cluster

• kubectl cluster-info

  Show the master and DNS endpoint
• kubectl version --client

  Print the kubectl client version
• kubectl config get-contexts

  List all known kubeconfig contexts
• kubectl config use-context <name>

  Switch the active context
• kubectl config current-context

  Print the active context
• kubectl api-resources

  List every resource type the cluster supports

Pods

• kubectl get pods

  List Pods in the current namespace
• kubectl get pods -A

  List Pods across every namespace
• kubectl get pod <name> -o yaml

  Print the full Pod manifest
• kubectl describe pod <name>

  Show events and detail for a Pod
• kubectl delete pod <name>

  Delete a Pod (controller will recreate)
• kubectl get pods --field-selector status.phase=Pending

  Show only Pending Pods

Deployments

• kubectl get deploy

  List Deployments
• kubectl create deploy nginx --image=nginx:1.27

  Create a Deployment from an image
• kubectl rollout status deploy/<name>

  Watch a rollout to completion
• kubectl rollout undo deploy/<name>

  Roll back to the previous revision
• kubectl scale deploy/<name> --replicas=5

  Set the replica count
• kubectl set image deploy/<name> <container>=<image>

  Update a container image

Services & networking

• kubectl get svc

  List Services
• kubectl expose deploy/<name> --port=80

  Create a ClusterIP Service for a Deployment
• kubectl port-forward svc/<name> 8080:80

  Forward a local port to a Service
• kubectl get ingress

  List Ingress resources
• kubectl get endpoints

  Show which Pods back each Service

Config & secrets

• kubectl get configmap

  List ConfigMaps
• kubectl create configmap app --from-file=./config.yaml

  Create a ConfigMap from a file
• kubectl get secret

  List Secrets
• kubectl create secret generic db --from-literal=password=…

  Create a Secret from a literal
• kubectl get secret db -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 -d

  Decode a Secret value

Logs & exec

• kubectl logs <pod>

  Print logs for the first container in a Pod
• kubectl logs <pod> -c <container>

  Logs for a specific container
• kubectl logs -f <pod>

  Follow logs (tail -f)
• kubectl logs --previous <pod>

  Logs from the previous container instance
• kubectl exec -it <pod> -- sh

  Open a shell inside a Pod
• kubectl cp <pod>:/path ./local

  Copy a file from a Pod

Debug & inspect

When something is wrong, these are the commands you reach for first.

• kubectl get events --sort-by=.lastTimestamp

  Recent cluster events
• kubectl top pod

  CPU/memory per Pod (requires metrics-server)
• kubectl top node

  CPU/memory per Node
• kubectl debug node/<node> -it --image=ubuntu

  Open a debug Pod on a Node
• kubectl debug pod/<pod> -it --image=busybox --share-processes

  Attach an ephemeral container to a Pod
• kubectl auth can-i create deploy

  Check whether the current user can perform an action

Apply, diff, kustomize

• kubectl apply -f ./manifests/

  Apply every YAML in a directory
• kubectl apply -k ./overlays/prod

  Apply a Kustomize overlay
• kubectl diff -f deploy.yaml

  Show what would change before applying
• kubectl delete -f ./manifests/

  Delete every resource defined in a directory
• kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready pod/<name>

  Wait for a condition to be true