K9s

What K9s is

K9s is a terminal interface for navigating, observing, and managing Kubernetes clusters and their applications. It watches for cluster changes and tracks resource activity and metrics in real time, including for pods, containers, and nodes. It works with standard Kubernetes resources and custom resource definitions. Cluster actions include viewing logs, scaling, port forwarding, and restarting resources. Pulses summarizes cluster state, while XRay shows resource dependencies; users can customize skins, columns, aliases, and hotkeys. Plugins let users add commands that receive resource and cluster context variables. K9s can display RBAC rules and show what a user, group, or ServiceAccount can do. Its read-only mode disables resource modification commands. It also integrates Hey to benchmark HTTP endpoints through port forwards and services; those forwards end when the K9s session exits. K9s is free and open source under Apache License 2.0, with optional sponsorship, and runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It has no graphical interface. The project prefers Kubernetes 1.28 or later and warns that older versions or insufficient RBAC permissions can cause problems.