🚀 Top 20 Most Useful kubectl Commands for Everyday Kubernetes Workflows

Whether you're a developer, SRE, DevOps engineer, or just starting out with Kubernetes, mastering kubectl is essential. Here’s a curated list of the top 20 kubectl commands that are universally useful across teams and cloud platforms (EKS, GKE, AKS, etc.). These commands will save you time, reduce confusion, and help you debug faster.

🔟 Most Commonly Used kubectl Commands

1. Get all pods across namespaces 

kubectl get pods -A

Great for seeing what’s running cluster-wide and spotting stuck or crashing pods.

2. Describe a pod (deep debugging) 

kubectl describe pod  -n

Reveals node assignment, events, taints, failed mounts, and more.

3. View logs from a pod 

kubectl logs  -n

Use --previous if the pod has crashed and restarted.

4. Exec into a running container 

kubectl exec -it  -n  -- /bin/sh

Great for real-time inspection, testing configs, or quick troubleshooting.

5. View recent events (cluster-wide) 

kubectl get events -A --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'

Use this to see the latest cluster activity, scheduling failures, crashes, and warnings.

6. View resource usage per pod 

kubectl top pods -A

Requires Metrics Server installed. Useful for performance monitoring.

7. Get all services across namespaces 

kubectl get svc -A

Quickly see which services are exposed and their types (ClusterIP, LoadBalancer, etc).

8. Restart a deployment 

kubectl rollout restart deployment  -n

Triggers a rolling restart—useful after changing ConfigMaps, Secrets, or images.

9. Port forward to a service or pod 

kubectl port-forward svc/ 8080:80 -n

Perfect for accessing internal services locally.

10. Get everything in a namespace 

kubectl get all -n

One-liner to view pods, deployments, services, etc., all at once.

🔟 More Essential kubectl Commands

11. Check node info 

kubectl get nodes -o wide

Displays node capacity, labels, roles, and IPs.

12. List namespaces with labels 

kubectl get namespaces --show-labels

Helps with namespace-level Fargate profiles and label selectors.

13. Get custom resources (CRDs) 

kubectl get crds

Essential when working with operators, controllers, or observability tooling.

14. Copy files into/from a pod 

kubectl cp ./local-file.txt :/tmp/ -n

Use this for backups, config injection, or pulling logs/artifacts out.

15. Apply a manifest 

kubectl apply -f your-file.yaml

Declarative way to manage resources.

16. Delete a resource 

kubectl delete deployment  -n

Useful for clearing broken resources blocking Terraform or Helm.

17. Watch pod status live 

kubectl get pods -n  -w

Great for seeing rollout or crash cycles in real time.

18. Label a resource 

kubectl label pod  env=staging -n

Labels are powerful for selectors, policies, and organizing workloads.

19. Taint a node 

kubectl taint nodes  key=value:NoSchedule

Advanced scheduling control—combine with pod tolerations.

20. Explain a Kubernetes resource 

kubectl explain deployment.spec.template.spec.containers

Learn the structure of complex manifests right from the CLI.

✅ Wrap-up

Mastering these 20 kubectl commands will level up your day-to-day efficiency in any Kubernetes environment—especially when using infrastructure as code with Terraform or Helm. Keep this cheat sheet close, and you'll debug faster and deploy smarter.

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