Shiva Shanmugam

Posted 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.

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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