⚡ LFK - Lightning Fast Kubernetes navigator

LFK is a keyboard-focused, yazi-inspired terminal user interface for navigating and managing Kubernetes clusters. It brings a three-column Miller columns layout with an owner-based resource hierarchy to your terminal.

Screenshots

Demo

Themes

Pods

Pods fullscreen

Helm integration

ArgoCD integration

ConfigMap and Secret editors

Label and annotation editor

Can-I RBAC permissions browser

YAML preview

API Explorer

Features

Navigation and Layout

• Three-column Miller columns interface (parent / current / preview)
• Owner-based navigation: Clusters -> Resource Types -> Resources -> Owned Resources -> Containers
• Resource groups: Dashboards, Workloads, Networking, Config, Storage, ArgoCD, Helm, Access Control, Cluster, Custom Resources
• Pinned CRD groups: Pin frequently used CRD API groups so they appear after built-in categories. Configurable via pinned_groups in config or interactively with p key (stored per-context)
• CRD categories: Discovered CRDs are grouped by API group name (e.g., argoproj.io, longhorn.io, networking.istio.io)
• Hide rarely used resources: CSI internals, admission webhooks, APF, leases, runtime classes, and uncategorized core resources are hidden by default. Press H to surface them under their categories and an "Advanced" group (resets each launch)
• Expandable/collapsible resource groups with z
• Fullscreen middle column toggle with Shift+F
• Vim-style keybindings throughout (fully customizable via config)
• Mouse support: Click to navigate, scroll wheel to move, Shift+Drag for native terminal text selection

Cluster Management

• Multi-tab support: Open multiple views side by side
• Multi-cluster/multi-context support via merged kubeconfig loading
• Merged kubeconfig loading: ~/.kube/config, ~/.kube/config.d/* (recursive, symlinks followed), KUBECONFIG env var, and KUBECONFIG_DIR env var.
• Cluster dashboard when entering a context (configurable)
• Monitoring dashboard with active Prometheus/Alertmanager alerts (@ key), configurable endpoints per cluster
• API Explorer for interactively browsing resource structure (I key) with recursive field browser
• Namespace selector overlay with type-to-filter
• All-namespaces mode (enabled by default)
• Local cluster management — create, list, and delete kind clusters; create, list, start, stop, and delete k3d and minikube clusters (kind has no native start/stop) from inside lfk via the Ctrl+N manager overlay.

Resource Operations

• Read-only mode: Lock a session against destructive actions (delete, edit, scale, restart, exec, port-forward, drain, etc.). Enable with --read-only, the read_only: true config field, per-context clusters.<name>.read_only, or the in-app Ctrl+R toggle (toggles the highlighted row's [RO] marker at the cluster picker; toggles the current tab inside a context). A [RO] badge in the title bar marks active sessions. See Read-Only Mode.
• Context-aware action menus: logs, exec, attach, debug, scale, restart, delete, describe, edit, events, port-forward, vuln scan, PVC resize
• Custom user-defined actions: Define custom shell commands per resource type in config
• Multi-select with bulk actions: Select multiple resources with Space, range-select with Ctrl+Space, perform bulk delete, scale, restart, and ArgoCD bulk sync/refresh
• Resource sorting by name, age, or status
• Filter and search: Filter with f, search with / -- supports substring, regex (auto-detected), and fuzzy (~ prefix) modes
• Abbreviated search: Type pvc, hpa, deploy etc. to jump to resource types
• Command bar (:) with vertical dropdown autocomplete: resource jumps (:pod, :dep), built-in commands (:ns, :ctx, :set, :sort, :export), kubectl with :k/:kubectl prefix and flag/namespace completion, shell commands (:!). Value positions (namespace, context, resource name, option, column, format) accept fuzzy matches; command names stay on prefix.
• Watch mode: Auto-refresh resources every 2 seconds (enabled by default)
• Owner/controller navigation: Jump to the owner of any resource with o
• Events view with warnings-only filter toggle and duplicate-event grouping (z)
• Crash Investigator — per-Pod tabbed view combining restart history, pod-scoped events, previous/current container logs, and container-scoped describe — accessible from the Pod action menu (x → I). Refresh with Shift+R.
• Traffic capture — per-pod packet capture (kubectl-debug or kubeshark, auto-detected) with live decode and pcap export. Press c on a Pod or Service.

Preview and Editing

• YAML preview in the right column with syntax highlighting
• Full-screen YAML viewer with scrollable output, search, section folding (Tab/z), and in-place editing
• Resource details summary in split preview (toggle with Shift+P)
• Inline log viewer with streaming, search, line numbers, word wrap, follow mode, timestamps toggle, previous container logs, container filter, tail-first loading, line jump, structured preview pane (P: parses the selected line as JSON or logfmt, falls back to plain text), and automatic reconnect across init-container transitions (stays attached as each init container finishes and the next one starts)
• Inline describe view with scrollable output
• Secret viewing/editing with decode toggle (Ctrl+S) and dedicated editor (e)
• Embedded terminal (PTY mode) for exec and shell with tab switching — PTY keeps running in background when switching tabs

Resource Management

• Resource templates: Create resources from 25+ built-in templates (a, / to search); includes a Custom Resource template as a starting point
• Port forwarding from the action menu (with local port setting and browser open); manage active forwards via the Networking group
• Clipboard support: Copy resource name (y), open copy-as picker (Y: YAML / JSON / Table), paste/apply from clipboard (Ctrl+P), paste into search/filter boxes (Cmd+V / Ctrl+Shift+V)
• Bookmarks: Save favorite resource paths for quick navigation
• Orphan detection: Press Shift+O (or run bare :orphans) to open the cluster-wide orphan overview across 11 kinds — Pods, Secrets, ConfigMaps, Services, PVCs, HPAs, PDBs, NetworkPolicies, Roles, ClusterRoles, RoleBindings, ClusterRoleBindings. Per-list filters are still available via the filter-preset overlay (.) on each kind, or jump straight to a filtered view with :orphans <kind> (e.g., :orphans secrets). A strict / lenient toggle (s) flips between "truly unused" and "currently idle but referenced by workload templates" (e.g. CronJob between firings). Auto-excludes Helm release Secrets, ServiceAccount tokens, owner-managed resources, and kube-root-ca.crt.
• Session persistence: Remembers last context/namespace/resource across restarts

Integrations

• ArgoCD integration: Browse Applications, sync, terminate sync, refresh, view managed resources
• Argo Workflows integration: Suspend/resume, stop/terminate, resubmit Workflows; submit from WorkflowTemplates; suspend/resume CronWorkflows
• Helm integration: Browse releases, view managed resources, uninstall
• KEDA integration: Pause/unpause ScaledObjects and ScaledJobs
• External Secrets integration: Force refresh ExternalSecrets, ClusterExternalSecrets, and PushSecrets
• CRD discovery: Automatically discovers installed CRDs and groups them by API group

Customization

• 460+ built-in color schemes from ghostty themes: Tokyonight, Catppuccin, Dracula, Nord, Rose Pine, Gruvbox, and many more. Transparent background support.
• Runtime theme switching: Press T to preview and switch themes without restarting
• Auto dark/light mode: configure a dark and a light scheme; lfk switches automatically when the OS appearance changes (requires CSI 996/2031 terminal support: Ghostty, kitty, Contour, …)
• Custom color themes via config file (Tokyonight theme by default)
• Configurable keybindings for direct actions
• Configurable search abbreviations
• Configurable filter presets per resource type (extend built-in quick filters with .)
• Configurable icon modes: auto (default, detects Nerd Font-capable terminals like Ghostty/Kitty/WezTerm), unicode, nerdfont (Material Design Icons), simple (ASCII labels), emoji, or none. Override at runtime with the LFK_ICONS environment variable.
• Configurable table columns (global, per-resource-type, and per-cluster)
• Column visibility toggle overlay to show/hide and reorder columns at runtime (, key)
• Startup tips: Random tips on startup to help discover features (configurable via tips: false)
• Status-aware coloring: Running=green, Pending=yellow, Failed=red
• Resource usage metrics: CPU/MEM with color-coded bars in dashboard

Installation

# Homebrew (macOS / Linux)
brew install janosmiko/tap/lfk

# Windows: Scoop
scoop bucket add janosmiko https://github.com/janosmiko/scoop-bucket && scoop install lfk
# or: winget install janosmiko.lfk
# or: choco install lfk

# Linux: Arch / AUR
yay -S lfk-bin

# Linux: Debian / Ubuntu (Cloudsmith APT)
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/janosmiko/lfk/setup.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash && sudo apt update && sudo apt install lfk

# Linux: Fedora / RHEL (Cloudsmith DNF)
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/janosmiko/lfk/setup.rpm.sh' | sudo -E bash && sudo dnf install lfk

# Go
go install github.com/janosmiko/lfk@latest

# Nix
nix run github:janosmiko/lfk

kubectl is required and must be configured. helm and trivy are optional (Helm management, image vulnerability scanning).

See docs/installation.md for Windows, Docker, NixOS/home-manager flake input, building from source, and the full list of optional CLI dependencies.

Usage

# Use default kubeconfig (~/.kube/config + ~/.kube/config.d/*)
lfk

# Start in a specific context / namespace
lfk --context my-cluster -n kube-system

# Use a specific kubeconfig
lfk --kubeconfig /path/to/kubeconfig
KUBECONFIG=/path/to/config1:/path/to/config2 lfk

# Use a custom directory for kubeconfigs (repeat the flag for multiple)
lfk --kubeconfig-dir /path/to/configs/
lfk --kubeconfig-dir /team-a/configs --kubeconfig-dir /team-b/configs
KUBECONFIG_DIR=/path/to/configs/ lfk
KUBECONFIG_DIR=/team-a/configs:/team-b/configs lfk

See docs/usage.md for the full CLI reference and runtime tuning options: mouse capture, no-color mode, read-only mode, watch-mode interval, discovery cache (KUBECACHEDIR), and Secret lazy loading.

Navigation Hierarchy

Clusters (kubeconfig contexts)
  +-- Resource Types (grouped: Workloads, Networking, Config, Storage, ArgoCD, Helm, ...)
        +-- Resources (e.g., individual Deployments)
              +-- Owned Resources (Pods via ownerReferences, Jobs for CronJobs, etc.)
                    +-- Containers (for Pods)

Namespaces are not a navigation level. The current namespace is shown in the top-right corner and can be changed by pressing \. All-namespaces mode is enabled by default (toggle with A).

Owner Resolution

• Deployments show their Pods (resolved through ReplicaSets, flattened)
• StatefulSets / DaemonSets / Jobs show their Pods directly
• CronJobs show their Jobs
• Services show Pods matching the service selector
• ArgoCD Applications show managed resources (from status or label discovery)
• Helm Releases show managed resources (via app.kubernetes.io/instance label)
• Pods show their Containers
• ConfigMaps / Secrets / Ingresses / PVCs show details preview (no children)

Keybindings

For the complete keybinding reference (YAML view, log viewer, describe, diff, exec mode, and all sub-modes), see docs/keybindings.md. Press ? or F1 in-app for the built-in help screen.

Navigation

Key	Action
h / Left	Navigate to parent level
l / Right	Navigate into selected item
j / Down	Move cursor down
k / Up	Move cursor up
gg / Home	Jump to top of list
G / End	Jump to bottom of list
Ctrl+D / Ctrl+U	Half-page scroll down/up
Ctrl+F / Ctrl+B / PgDn / PgUp	Full-page scroll down/up
Enter	Open full-screen YAML view / navigate into
z	Toggle expand/collapse all resource groups / toggle event grouping (Events view)
p	Pin/unpin CRD group (at resource types level)
H	Toggle rarely used resource types (CSI internals, webhooks, APF, leases, advanced core) in the sidebar
0 / 1 / 2	Jump to clusters / types / resources level
J / K	Scroll preview pane down/up
o	Jump to owner/controller of selected resource

Views and Modes

Key	Action
?	Toggle help screen
f	Filter items in current view
/	Search and jump to match
n / N	Next / previous search match
P	Toggle between details and YAML preview
M	Toggle resource relationship map
F	Toggle fullscreen (middle column or dashboard)
.	Quick filter presets
!	Error log (V/v select, y copy, f fullscreen)
Ctrl+S	Toggle secret value visibility
Ctrl+G	Finalizer search and remove
I	API Explorer (browse resource structure interactively)
U	RBAC permissions browser (can-i)
T	Open theme selector
:	Command bar: resource jumps (:pod, :dep), built-ins (:ns, :ctx, :set, :sort, :export), kubectl (:k get pod), shell (:! cmd)
w	Toggle watch mode (auto-refresh)
,	Column visibility toggle (show/hide and reorder columns)
> / <	Sort by next / previous column
=	Toggle sort direction (ascending/descending)
-	Reset sort to default (Name ascending)
W	Save resource to file / toggle warnings-only (Events)
Ctrl+T	Cycle terminal mode (pty / exec / mux — mux skipped without tmux/zellij)
@	Monitoring overview (active Prometheus alerts)
Q	Namespace resource quota dashboard

Actions

Key	Action
x	Action menu (logs, exec, describe, edit, delete, scale, port-forward, etc.)
\ / A	Namespace selector / toggle all-namespaces
L	View logs
v	Describe resource
D / X	Delete / force delete
y / Y	Copy name / open copy-as picker (YAML / JSON / Table)
Space	Toggle multi-selection (bulk actions via x)
m<slot> / '<slot>	Set / jump to bookmark (lowercase = context-aware, uppercase = context-free)
t / ] / [	New tab / next / previous

All views (YAML, logs, describe, diff, exec) use vim-style navigation (j/k, gg/G, Ctrl+D/Ctrl+U, / search, v/V visual selection). See docs/keybindings.md for the full reference.

For the complete command bar reference (built-in commands, shell/kubectl execution, resource jumps), see docs/commands.md.

Configuration

Create ~/.config/lfk/config.yaml to customize the application. All fields are optional; only the values you specify will override the defaults.

For the complete configuration reference, see docs/config-reference.md and docs/config-example.yaml.

Quick Start

# Color scheme (press T in-app to browse 460+ themes with live preview)
# Auto dark/light mode — Ghostty-style "dark:X,light:Y" syntax switches the
# scheme when the OS appearance changes (CSI 996/2031; Ghostty, kitty >= 0.27, …)
colorscheme: "dark:catppuccin-mocha,light:catppuccin-latte"

# Use terminal's own background
transparent_background: true

# Icon mode: "auto" (default, detects Nerd Font terminals like Ghostty/Kitty/WezTerm),
# "unicode", "nerdfont" (requires Nerd Font in terminal), "simple" (ASCII labels),
# "emoji", or "none". The LFK_ICONS env var overrides this setting.
icons: auto

# Disable mouse capture (allows native terminal text selection)
mouse: false

# Custom keybinding overrides (only specify what you want to change)
keybindings:
  logs: "L"
  describe: "v"
  delete: "D"

# Search abbreviations (extend built-in abbreviations for :pod, :dep, etc.)
abbreviations:
  myapp: myapplications

Search Modes

All search and filter inputs support three modes, auto-detected from the query string:

Mode	Syntax	Example
Substring	plain text	nginx
Regex	auto-detected	err[0-9]+
Fuzzy	~ prefix	~deplymnt
Literal	\ prefix	\err.*

Clipboard paste: All search, filter, and command bar inputs accept pasted text (Cmd+V on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+V on Linux). Multiline paste shows a confirmation dialog.

Recall previous queries: While the f filter or / search input is open, press Up / Down to cycle through previous queries. / and f share one history (the matcher and matched fields are identical between them), kept separate from the : command bar. The log viewer's / search has its own history because it matches raw log lines (substring/regex over arbitrary text) rather than resource names — pooling it would surface irrelevant entries. All three persist across sessions under $XDG_STATE_HOME/lfk/ (default ~/.local/state/lfk/) — query-history for explorer / and f, log-search-history for the log viewer's /, and history for the command bar.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for prerequisites, development setup, build/test commands, project layout, and the PR submission flow.

Support

If you find lfk useful and want to support its development:

• GitHub Sponsors
• Buy Me a Coffee

License

Apache License 2.0 - see LICENSE for details.

Star History