Blogs | PDF Summary | Installation | API | Custom Graphical CLIs

Kui: a Framework for Enhancing CLIs with Graphics

We love CLIs, and think they are critical for interacting in a
flexible way with the cloud. We need the power to go off the
rails. But ASCII is tedious.

Kui takes your normal kubectl command line requests and responds
with graphics. Instead of ASCII tables, you are presented with
sortable ones. Instead of copying and pasting long auto-generated
resource names, in Kui you just click.

Kui is also fast. It launches in seconds, and can process kubectl
commands 2-3 times faster than kubectl itself.

Help us make Kubernetes tools better by filling out a quick 2
minute survey on your tool
preferences. Thanks!

Installing Kui for Kubernetes

We offer prebuilt images optimized for an enhanced Kubernetes CLI
experience.

MacOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)

brew install kui
kubectl kui get pods
open /Applications/Kui.app

Windows and Linux

Download and
unzip, then
add the unzipped directory to your PATH. Now use kubectl kui or
launch the Kui executable to use Kui's built-in REPL.

Windows Warning: Please use forward slashes for filepaths, e.g. c:/users, not c:\users.

I don't trust the prebuilts

We hear you. Choose your platform (e.g. mac:amd64), execute the
following, then look in ./dist/electron.

git clone git@github.com:kubernetes-sigs/kui.git && cd kui && npm ci && \
    npm run build:electron:mac:amd64

Kui is a framework for adding graphics to CLIs. Kui allows for either
a hosted client-server architecture, or the distribution of
double-clickable applications (via Electron).

Using the Kui framework, you can design your own Kubernetes
enhancements, set a custom theme or custom icon, and enhance the
commands of your favorite CLI. Check out the template
repo. If your
enhancements would be generally valuable, please PR them back here,
e.g. awesome Kubernetes enhancements can be integrated with the core
Kubernetes plugin.

Code of Conduct

Participation in the Kubernetes community is governed by the Kubernetes Code
of Conduct.