kubeLense

A terminal UI for browsing Kubernetes clusters — think Lens / k9s, in your shell.

kubeLense reads your data through the local kubectl binary, so whatever auth already works for kubectl (including cloud exec plugins like aws eks get-token) works here with zero extra setup. v1 is read-only — browse, inspect logs, describe, view YAML, and shell into pods. No delete/scale yet.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (tested on v22)
• kubectl on your PATH, configured for a cluster

Install

# One-off, no install:
npx @theradio.in/kubelense

# Or install globally:
npm install -g @theradio.in/kubelense
kubelense   # the command is just "kubelense"

kubeLense drives your existing kubectl, so it uses whatever cluster and auth kubectl is already configured for — no extra credentials to set up.

Run from source

npm install

# Dev (run TypeScript directly):
npm run dev

# Or build and run:
npm run build
node dist/index.js

# Install the `kubelense` command globally from this checkout:
npm run build && npm link      # then just: kubelense

Options: --context <name>, --kubeconfig <path|dir>, --help.

Multiple kubeconfig files

--kubeconfig is repeatable, accepts a :-separated list, and expands directories to the files inside. All contexts from every file are merged, so you can hop between clusters live with the c context picker.

# several files
kubelense --kubeconfig ~/.kube/a --kubeconfig ~/.kube/b
# a colon-separated list (like KUBECONFIG)
kubelense --kubeconfig ~/.kube/a:~/.kube/b
# a whole directory of configs
kubelense --kubeconfig ~/k8s-config

kubeLense is keyboard-only — it never captures the mouse, so your terminal's native scroll and select-to-copy keep working.

Keys

| Key | Action | | -------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | n | open the interactive namespace picker | | :<resource> | switch view — pods, deploy, svc, nodes, ns, cm, secrets | | :ns <name> | set the active namespace (:all clears it) | | /<text> | filter rows by name or namespace | | ↑/↓ | move the cursor | | l | stream logs (pods) | | d | kubectl describe the selected object | | y | view the object's YAML | | s | open a shell in the pod (kubectl exec -it) | | 0 | show all namespaces | | r | refresh now (auto-refreshes every 3s) | | esc | close an overlay / clear the filter | | q | quit |

In the logs view

| Key | Action | | -------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | ↑/↓ · pgup | scroll — scrolling up pauses the live tail | | f / end | resume following (jump back to newest) | | w | toggle full-line wrap (shows untruncated lines; pauses) | | enter | drop a blank separator line into the tail | | esc / q | close |

How it's built

• src/kube.ts — thin wrapper around kubectl (JSON out, log streaming, exec).
• src/resources.ts — data-driven registry of resource kinds + their columns. Add a kind here and it shows up in the UI automatically.
• src/app.ts — the blessed full-screen UI: table, command bar, overlays.
• src/index.ts — CLI entry / arg parsing.

Ideas for later

• Events view (:events) and per-object events in a detail drill-down.
• kubectl top CPU/memory columns for pods and nodes (needs metrics-server).
• More resources: statefulsets, daemonsets, jobs, cronjobs, ingresses, PVCs, HPAs.
• Mutating actions (delete, scale, rollout restart) behind a typed confirmation, gated by an explicit --allow-write flag.
• Swap the kubectl backend for @kubernetes/client-node + real watches.