All Essential Kubernetes Commands – 2026 Updated Guide

1. View cluster status

kubectl cluster-info

Purpose: Verify that core components such as the API server and DNS are functioning.

Typical scenarios: check cluster availability; troubleshoot control‑plane problems.

2. View node status

kubectl get nodes

Purpose: List all nodes and their Ready/NotReady state.

Extended view: kubectl get nodes -o wide Shows node IP, OS version, container runtime, etc.

3. View Pods

kubectl get pods

Purpose: List Pods in the current namespace.

All namespaces:

kubectl get pods -A

4. Describe a Pod

kubectl describe pod <pod-name>

Purpose: Detailed inspection of a Pod, including events, image‑pull status, restart reasons, and scheduling information.

5. View Deployments

kubectl get deployment

Purpose: Inspect the deployment status of applications.

6. Check rollout status

kubectl rollout status deployment/<name>

Purpose: Verify whether a deployment rollout has completed successfully.

7. Roll back a deployment

kubectl rollout undo deployment/<name>

Purpose: Revert to the previous revision, useful for failed releases or emergency rollbacks.

Applicable scenarios: release failure; production incident rollback.

8. View logs

kubectl logs <pod-name>

Purpose: Stream real‑time logs from a Pod.

Multi‑container Pod:

kubectl logs <pod-name> -c <container-name>

9. Execute a shell in a container

kubectl exec -it <pod-name> -- /bin/bash

If the container image uses Alpine, replace /bin/bash with /bin/sh.

Purpose: Diagnose environment issues and debug the container’s internal state.

10. Delete resources

kubectl delete pod <pod-name>

Purpose: Remove a specific Pod. kubectl delete deployment <name> Purpose: Delete an entire Deployment.

11. Apply YAML configuration

kubectl apply -f app.yaml

Purpose: Create or declaratively update resources defined in a YAML manifest.

Create resources

Update resources (declarative)

12. View all resources

kubectl get all

Purpose: List the most important resource types in the current namespace (Pods, Services, Deployments, ReplicaSets).