kubectl-x

README

kubectl x

A kubectl plugin that runs commands against every context in your kubeconfig file in parallel.

Features

• Run kubectl commands against all contexts simultaneously
• Parallel execution with configurable batching (default: 25 contexts at a time)
• Filter contexts by name pattern
• Support for version and get subcommands
• Flexible output formatting:
  • Default: Adds a CONTEXT column to table output
  • JSON/YAML: Concatenates items with .metadata.context field

Why another project?

This functionality already exists in another projects, kubectl-foreach. That is a great project and I learned a lot from it. However, it does not output valid JSON or YAML and I wanted that option, as well as some other features.

Limitations

• This is a v0.x project - the interface may change at any time and should not be relied upon for programmatic use.
• The author of this project does not intend to support write operations via the tool. If you desire to do that, we encourage you to come up with your own tooling or look elsewhere.

Installation

go build .

Usage

Batch Size

Control the number of contexts processed in parallel using the --batch-size (or -b) flag:

# Use default batch size of 25
kubectl x get pods

# Use custom batch size
kubectl x --batch-size 10 get pods
kubectl x -b 50 get pods

Filtering Contexts

Filter which contexts to run commands against using the --filter flag with regex patterns (case-insensitive). You can specify multiple --filter flags to match contexts that match any of the patterns (OR logic):

# Match contexts containing "prod"
kubectl x --filter prod get pods

# Match contexts starting with "dev"
kubectl x --filter "^dev" version

# Match contexts containing "dev" OR "prod"
kubectl x --filter dev --filter prod get pods

# Match contexts ending with "-prod" or "-staging"
kubectl x --filter "-prod$" --filter "-staging$" get pods

# Match contexts with "prod" or "production" (using regex alternation)
kubectl x --filter "prod(uction)?" get pods

# Combine with batch size
kubectl x --filter staging --batch-size 10 get pods

Version Command

Run kubectl version against all contexts:

kubectl x version

Get Command

Run kubectl get against all contexts:

# Get pods from all contexts
kubectl x get pods

# Get pods with namespace
kubectl x get pods -n default

# Get pods with JSON output
kubectl x get pods -o json

# Get pods with YAML output
kubectl x get pods -o yaml

Output Formats

Default Output

By default, the tool adds a CONTEXT column to the left of the kubectl output:

CONTEXT    NAME                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
ctx1       pod-abc                 1/1     Running   0          5m
ctx2       pod-xyz                 1/1     Running   0          3m

JSON/YAML Output

When using -o json or -o yaml, the tool concatenates all items from all contexts and adds a metadata.context field to each item:

{
  "apiVersion": "v1",
  "kind": "List",
  "items": [
    {
      "metadata": {
        "name": "pod-abc",
        "context": "ctx1",
        ...
      }
    },
    {
      "metadata": {
        "name": "pod-xyz",
        "context": "ctx2",
        ...
      }
    }
  ]
}

Requirements

• kubectl installed and configured
• Valid kubeconfig file (default: ~/.kube/config or $KUBECONFIG)
• Go 1.21 or later to build