Shiva Shanmugam

Posted on Mar 22 • Edited on Mar 27

K9s ~ The Terminal UI That Changes How You Do Kubernetes

#kubernetes #devops #cli #productivity

K9s gives you a real-time, interactive terminal dashboard for managing every resource in your cluster with keyboard shortcuts for everything.

Why kubectl Alone Isn't Enough

Anyone who has spent serious time with Kubernetes knows the pain in debugging a crashing pod means running four or five different commands just to understand what's happening. You're constantly context-switching between terminal windows, squinting at JSON blobs, and copy-pasting pod names.

# The old way — just to debug ONE crashing pod
kubectl get pods -n production
kubectl describe pod api-gateway-7d9f8b-xkp2q -n production
kubectl logs api-gateway-7d9f8b-xkp2q -n production --previous
kubectl exec -it api-gateway-7d9f8b-xkp2q -n production -- /bin/sh
kubectl port-forward api-gateway-7d9f8b-xkp2q 8080:80 -n production

That's five commands, three copy-pastes, and a lot of cognitive overhead just for one pod.

kubectl vs K9s Side by Side

Task	K9s	kubectl
View all pods	`:pod` then Enter	`kubectl get pods -A`
Stream pod logs	Select + `l`	`kubectl logs -f <pod-name>`
Exec into pod shell	Select + `s`	`kubectl exec -it <pod> -- /bin/sh`
Port-forward	Select + `Shift+F`	`kubectl port-forward <pod> 8080:80`
Delete a resource	Select + `Ctrl+D`	`kubectl delete pod <name>`
Edit resource YAML	Select + `e`	`kubectl edit pod <name>`
Switch namespace	`Ctrl+A` for all namespaces	`-n` flag on every command
Real-time CPU/Mem	✅ Built-in pulse view	❌ Requires separate tooling
Rolling restart	Select + `Ctrl+L`	`kubectl rollout restart deploy/<name>`
Decode secrets	Select + `x`	`kubectl get secret <name> -o jsonpath=...`

What is K9s?

K9s is an open-source, terminal-based UI built by Fernand Galiana that wraps the entire Kubernetes API in a fast, keyboard-driven interface.

It's not a GUI, it lives in your terminal, it's blazing fast, and once you learn the shortcuts, you'll never want to go back to plain kubectl.

Think of K9s as htop for Kubernetes, it continuously watches your cluster state and updates in real time.

 ____  __.________
|    |/ _/   __   \______
|      < \____    /  ___/
|    |  \   /    /\___ \
|____|__ \ /____//____  >
        \/            \/

K9s — Kubernetes CLI To Manage Your Clusters In Style!

Complete Shortcut Reference

Global Navigation

These shortcuts work from any view in K9s.

Shortcut	Action
`:` + resource name	Go to any resource view (e.g., `:pod`, `:svc`, `:node`)
`?`	Open help / shortcut cheat sheet
`Ctrl+A`	Toggle all namespaces view
`Ctrl+C`	Quit K9s
`Esc`	Go back / exit current view / cancel filter
`/`	Enter filter mode (fuzzy search current list)
`!`	Toggle error view
`Ctrl+U`	Clear filter
`↑` / `↓` or `k` / `j`	Navigate up/down (vim-style works!)
`g` / `G`	Jump to top / bottom of list
`Ctrl+R`	Refresh / reload the current view
`:ctx`	Switch Kubernetes context
`:ns`	Switch namespace
`:h`	View command history
`Ctrl+E`	Hide / show the header bar
`Ctrl+P`	Toggle CPU/Mem pulse panel on/off
`z`	Toggle error panel

Pod Management

Enter :pod or :po to access this view.

Shortcut	Action
`l`	Stream logs for the selected pod
`p`	Previous logs (like `--previous` flag — for crashed containers)
`s`	Open a shell (exec) into the selected pod/container
`d`	Describe the selected pod (full metadata + events)
`e`	Edit the pod YAML in your `$EDITOR`
`y`	View full YAML of the selected resource
`Ctrl+K`	Force kill / delete the selected pod (no confirmation)
`Ctrl+D`	Delete with grace period (safe delete, with confirmation)
`Shift+F`	Open port-forward menu for the pod
`f`	Show all active port-forwards
`Ctrl+W`	Toggle wide output (shows more columns)
`Shift+C`	Sort by CPU usage
`Shift+M`	Sort by memory usage
`Shift+N`	Sort by pod name
`Shift+O`	Sort by container count
`Shift+R`	Sort by restart count
`Shift+T`	Sort by age (time)
`Ctrl+L`	Rolling restart of the pods in the parent deployment
`a`	View containers within the pod
`Enter`	Drill into pod / select container

Log Viewer

Press l on any pod to enter the log viewer.

Shortcut	Action
`f`	Toggle full screen for log view
`w`	Toggle line wrap
`↑` / `↓`	Scroll up/down through logs
`Page Up` / `Page Down`	Scroll by full page
`g`	Jump to top (oldest logs)
`G`	Jump to bottom (newest / live logs)
`/`	Search / filter within logs
`s`	Toggle auto-scroll (tail mode on/off)
`t`	Toggle timestamps in log output
`p`	View previous container logs (for restarted containers)
`Ctrl+S`	Save logs to a local file
`0`–`9`	Switch between containers within the pod
`c`	Copy log line to clipboard

Services & Networking

Command / Shortcut	Action
`:svc`	View all Services
`:ing`	View all Ingresses
`:ep`	View Endpoints
`:netpol`	View NetworkPolicies
`:pf`	Manage all active port-forwards
`Shift+F` on a Service	Open port-forward dialog for the service
`d` on a Service	Describe service (selectors, ports, endpoints)
`y` on a Service	View full Service YAML
`e` on a Service	Edit service configuration
`Ctrl+B` on a Service	Benchmark the service endpoint (load test)
`Enter` on an Ingress	View ingress rules and backend info

Deployments, ReplicaSets & StatefulSets

Command / Shortcut	Action
`:deploy` or `:dp`	View all Deployments
`:rs`	View all ReplicaSets
`:sts`	View all StatefulSets
`:ds`	View all DaemonSets
`Ctrl+L` on a Deployment	Trigger a rolling restart
`s` on a Deployment	Scale — open scale dialog (set replica count)
`d`	Describe the deployment (events, conditions, strategy)
`Enter` on a Deployment	Drill down into pods belonging to deployment
`y`	View full deployment YAML
`e`	Edit deployment YAML inline
`Ctrl+D`	Delete the deployment (with confirmation)

Nodes & Cluster Management

Command / Shortcut	Action
`:node` or `:no`	View all cluster nodes
`Shift+C`	Sort nodes by CPU usage
`Shift+M`	Sort nodes by memory usage
`d` on a Node	Describe node (taints, conditions, capacity, allocatable)
`Enter` on a Node	View all pods running on that node
`y` on a Node	View full node YAML (labels, annotations)
`Ctrl+U` on a Node	Cordon a node (prevent new pod scheduling)
`Ctrl+N` on a Node	Uncordon a node (re-enable scheduling)
`Ctrl+D` on a Node	Drain the node (evict all pods safely)
`:cl`	Cluster info view (API server, version info)
`:ev`	View all cluster events (warnings, errors)

ConfigMaps, Secrets & Storage

Command / Shortcut	Action
`:cm`	View all ConfigMaps
`:secret`	View all Secrets
`x` on a Secret	Decode and view base64 secret values
`e` on a Secret	Edit a secret (values auto-encoded on save)
`:pvc`	View PersistentVolumeClaims
`:pv`	View PersistentVolumes
`:sc`	View StorageClasses
`d`	Describe selected resource
`Ctrl+D`	Delete selected resource

RBAC & Access Control

Command	Action
`:sa`	View ServiceAccounts
`:rb`	View RoleBindings
`:crb`	View ClusterRoleBindings
`:cr`	View ClusterRoles
`:role`	View Roles (namespaced)
`:hpa`	View HorizontalPodAutoscalers
`:vpa`	View VerticalPodAutoscalers
`:po` (PodDisruptionBudgets context)	View PodDisruptionBudgets

Jobs & CronJobs

Command / Shortcut	Action
`:job`	View all Jobs
`:cj`	View all CronJobs
`Ctrl+T` on a CronJob	Trigger a CronJob manually (creates job immediately)
`Enter` on a Job	View pods spawned by this job
`d`	Describe the job (completions, conditions, duration)
`Ctrl+D`	Delete job

Custom Resources (CRDs)

Command / Shortcut	Action
`:crd`	View all Custom Resource Definitions
`:<crd-short-name>`	Navigate directly to any CRD (e.g., `:vs` for VirtualService)
`Enter` on a CRD	List all instances of that custom resource
`d`	Describe a CRD instance
`y`	View the YAML of a CRD instance
`e`	Edit a CRD instance

All Resource Commands at a Glance

Type these with : from anywhere in K9s to jump to any resource view instantly.

Workloads

Command	Resource
`:pod` / `:po`	Pods
`:deploy` / `:dp`	Deployments
`:sts`	StatefulSets
`:ds`	DaemonSets
`:rs`	ReplicaSets
`:job`	Jobs
`:cj`	CronJobs

Networking

Command	Resource
`:svc`	Services
`:ing`	Ingresses
`:ep`	Endpoints
`:netpol`	NetworkPolicies
`:pf`	Active Port Forwards

Cluster

Command	Resource
`:node` / `:no`	Nodes
`:ns`	Namespaces
`:ctx`	Contexts (switch cluster)
`:ev`	Events
`:cl`	Cluster Info

Config & Storage

Command	Resource
`:cm`	ConfigMaps
`:secret`	Secrets
`:sa`	ServiceAccounts
`:pvc`	PersistentVolumeClaims
`:pv`	PersistentVolumes
`:sc`	StorageClasses

RBAC

Command	Resource
`:rb`	RoleBindings
`:crb`	ClusterRoleBindings
`:cr`	ClusterRoles
`:role`	Roles

Auto-scaling

Command	Resource
`:hpa`	HorizontalPodAutoscalers
`:vpa`	VerticalPodAutoscalers

Advanced Views

Command	Description
`:crd`	All Custom Resource Definitions
`:xray deploy default`	Full dependency tree for deployments in `default` ns
`:pulses`	Live cluster-wide CPU/MEM metrics dashboard
`:popeye`	Run cluster sanitizer (finds misconfigs, deprecated APIs)

🔗 Resources

If this helped you, drop a ❤️ and share it with your team. Found a shortcut I missed? Drop it in the comments below! 👇

Happy clustering!

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