You know the drill.
You're debugging a production issue. Terminal one: kubectl logs. Terminal two: kubectl describe. Tab over to Grafana to check metrics. Back to the terminal to kubectl exec. Open a YAML file. Run helm list. Repeat.
By the time you've found the problem, you've touched six tools, four terminals, and lost track of what you were originally looking for.
We were tired of this. So we built Podscape — a desktop app that puts your entire Kubernetes workflow in a single window. Today we're shipping v4.0, our biggest release yet.
What is Podscape?
Podscape is a free, open-source Kubernetes desktop client for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It connects to your existing kubeconfig — no account, no cloud, no telemetry. Just your cluster, right in front of you.
Under the hood it's an Electron app with a Go sidecar (podscape-core) that maintains shared informer caches against your cluster. That means state updates the instant Kubernetes does — not when a poll timer fires.
What's in v4.0
Everything in one window
The core promise: you should never need to leave the app.
- Real-time resource views — pods, deployments, statefulsets, daemonsets, jobs, services, ingresses, network policies, configmaps, secrets, RBAC, storage, HPAs, PDBs, CRDs, and more. All live-updating via informers.
- Log streaming — tail any container's logs with search. Multiple containers, one view.
- Exec into containers — full PTY sessions, tabbed, directly in the app.
- Port forwarding — one click. Auto port detection. Clickable local URLs in the table.
- Built-in terminal — tabbed shell with kubectl pre-configured, no setup needed.
Network Map
This is the one we're most excited about.
Kubernetes networking is notoriously hard to reason about. Services, pods, ingresses, network policies — the relationships between them exist in your cluster but nowhere you can see them.
The Network Map renders your entire cluster topology as an interactive force-directed graph. Nodes collapse intelligently (ReplicaSets with multiple pods become a single workload node). Edges show the actual relationships: owner references, service-to-pod label matches, ingress-to-service connections, pod-to-PVC volumes, network policy coverage.
For Cilium users: if Hubble is installed in your cluster, Podscape observes live network flows and overlays them on the map. You can watch traffic move between services in real time.
Security Hub
Two scanners, zero configuration:
- Kubesec runs in-process against every workload in your namespace — no external calls, instant results. It flags privileged containers, missing resource limits, host namespace access, and more.
- Trivy scans container images for known CVEs. Results stream in as each image finishes.
The Security Hub aggregates both into a single risk overview with per-resource drill-down.
Helm, end to end
List releases, inspect values, view full history, rollback to any revision, run upgrades — all from the UI. The repo browser lets you search the Artifact Hub, preview chart values, and install directly. Podscape tracks new chart versions and surfaces an upgrade hint next to any outdated release.
GitOps panel
If you're running Argo CD or Flux, Podscape auto-detects them and adds a GitOps section. See the sync status, health, and resource tree of all your applications without opening a separate UI.
Connectivity Tester
Pick a source pod and a target (host:port or service). Podscape runs DNS, TCP, and HTTP probes and reports back with a structured result — plus automated analysis of whether a NetworkPolicy or missing endpoint is responsible for a failure. Essential when you're debugging "why can't service A reach service B."
TLS Dashboard
A cluster-wide certificate inventory with expiry tracking. Never be surprised by an expired cert again.
MCP Server
podscape-mcp ships as a standalone binary alongside the app. Register it with Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI assistant and your cluster becomes a set of tools your AI can call directly — get pods, describe deployments, check RBAC, inspect Helm releases, all without leaving your editor.
claude mcp add --transport stdio podscape -- /path/to/podscape-mcp-darwin-arm64
Service mesh support
Istio, Traefik v2/v3, NGINX Inc, NGINX Community — auto-detected per cluster. If a service mesh is present, Podscape adds dedicated sections for its custom resources (VirtualServices, IngressRoutes, Middlewares, etc.).
RBAC-aware everywhere
On startup, Podscape runs a concurrent SelfSubjectAccessReview probe against all resource types. Sections you don't have access to are silently omitted — no error banners, no crashes, just a clean UI scoped to what you can actually see.
Command Palette (⌘K)
Fuzzy search across every section, resource, context, and namespace. If you know the name of what you're looking for, ⌘K gets you there in under a second.
What's next
We're building in public at an early stage. The roadmap includes deeper debugging workflows, more AI integrations, and continued UX simplification. Issues and feature requests are open on GitHub — we read everything.
Get it
Available as a universal DMG (macOS Apple Silicon + Intel), NSIS installer (Windows), and AppImage / .deb (Linux). Signed and notarized on macOS.
No account. No subscription. Apache 2.0.
If you try it, let us know what you think — here in the comments or on GitHub Discussions. Every piece of feedback directly shapes what we build next.
Built by Coding Protocols · GitHub · Apache 2.0
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