kubectl-neat

Remove clutter from Kubernetes manifests to make them more readable.

Demo

Here is a result of a kubectl get pod -oyaml for a simple Pod. The lines marked in red are considered redundant and will be removed from the output by kubectl-neat.

Why

When you create a Kubernetes resource, let's say a Pod, Kubernetes adds a whole bunch of internal system information to the yaml or json that you originally authored. This includes:

• Metadata such as creation timestamp, or some internal IDs
• Fill in for missing attributes with default values
• Additional system attributes created by admission controllers, such as service account token
• Status information

If you try to kubectl get resources you have created, they will no longer look like what you originally authored, and will be unreadably verbose.
kubectl-neat cleans up that redundant information for you.

Installion

kubectl krew install neat

or just download the binary if you prefer.

When used as a kubectl plugin the command is kubectl neat, and when used as a standalone executable it's kubectl-neat.

Usage

You can pipe kubectl get -o yaml/json output to it:

kubectl get pod mypod -o yaml | kubectl neat

or any other yaml/json as long as it's a valid Kubernetes resource

kubectl neat <./my-pod.json

or just replace any kubectl get command with kubectl neat. For example:

kubectl neat pod mypod -oyaml
kubectl neat svc myservice --output json

Any valid option that kubectl get accepts should be usable.