Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a container orchestration engine for the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Install and enable the Kubernetes plugin for IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate to add the following features for managing your Kubernetes cluster:

Coding assistance for Kubernetes resource configuration files.
Coding assistance for Helm charts and templates.
Validation of custom resources with custom resource definition (CRD) specifications.
Coding assistance for Kustomize files: field and local file path completion, quick documentation, and navigation between Kustomize files and patches. The list of related Kustomize files appears in the editor at the top of the open Kustomize patch.
Interaction with the cluster from IntelliJ IDEA: use the Services tool window to see all resources of the Kubernetes cluster in the current context, jump to relevant resource definitions, view logs for containers running on pods, and much more.

The Kubernetes plugin supports Kubernetes versions 1.6 to 1.26 (you can select the applicable version).

Install the Kubernetes plugin

This functionality relies on the Kubernetes plugin, which you need to install and enable.

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.
Open the Marketplace tab, find the Kubernetes plugin, and click Install (restart the IDE if prompted).

Specify a custom path to kubectl and helm

IntelliJ IDEA uses the default kubectl (and helm if you use it) executables as determined by the PATH environment variable. If you install Kubernetes or Helm in custom directories, you can manually specify the path to them.

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), select Build, Execution, Deployment | Kubernetes.
In the Path to kubectl executable field, specify the path to the kubectl executable file.
In the Path to helm executable field, specify the path to the helm executable file.

Use custom Kubernetes configuration files

IntelliJ IDEA detects the default kubeconfig file. You can use a different configuration file. You can either apply it globally or use a different file for each project.

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), select Build, Execution, Deployment | Kubernetes.
In the Path to kubeconfig file field, specify the path to a kubeconfig file.
If you want to use different configuration files in different projects, clear the Set this kubeconfig file path globally for all projects checkbox.

Configure the Kubernetes API version

IntelliJ IDEA provides completion for configuration key values, navigation to relevant selectors and definitions via gutter icons, specialized inspections that check for deprecated values and required keys, and other assistance features. These depend on the version of the API you are using. The Kubernetes plugin supports Kubernetes versions 1.6 to 1.26. By default, IntelliJ IDEA sets it to the latest version. However, if your resources use an earlier version, you can change it.

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), select Languages & Frameworks | Kubernetes.
Change the Kubernetes API version and Kustomize version options as necessary.

Resource configuration files

The Kubernetes plugin provides rich support for resource configuration files in YAML, and only basic support for the JSON format.

Supported features

Feature	YAML	JSON
Auto-completion	Supported	Supported
Quick documentation	Supported	Supported
Inspections and quick fixes	Invalid, missing, and duplicated keys Non-editable (read-only) keys and resources Deprecated keys and resources Invalid integer and enum key values	Invalid, missing, and duplicated properties
Live templates	Predefined templates for common configuration kinds: `kcm`: ConfigMap `kdep`: Deployment `kpod`: Pod `kres`: Generic resource `kser`: Service	No predefined live templates
Smart completion	Supported	Not supported
Custom resource definitions	Supported	Not supported
Label definitions and selectors	Navigation using gutter icons, find usages, and renaming	Not supported
Enhancements of the original Kubernetes model	Enums instead of plain strings where applicable	None

IntelliJ IDEA recognizes Kubernetes resource configuration files using the following mandatory fields:

apiVersion: identifies the versioned schema of the object representation
kind: identifies the resource type (for example, Service, Pod, Deployment, and so on)

If both of the previous fields are present in a YAML or JSON file, IntelliJ IDEA will mark the file with the corresponding Kubernetes icon and enable all available features:

How a Kubernetes resource file is recognized

Create a resource file

With IntelliJ IDEA, you can quickly create configuration files for some of the most popular resources in Kubernetes.

In the Project tool window, right-click a folder, select New (or press Alt+Insert), and then select Kubernetes Resource.
In the Name field, type your resource name and select the file template from the list.

This will create a new file with its contents based on the selected file template.

Alternatively, in YAML files, you can use predefined live templates:

kcm: Kubernetes ConfigMap
kdep: Kubernetes Deployment
kpod: Kubernetes Pod
kres: Kubernetes Generic Resource
kser: Kubernetes Service

Using a Live Template to create a Kubernetes deployment configuration

Disable Kubernetes schema validation

IntelliJ IDEA validates your Kubernetes files against the Kubernetes API schema. This includes checking it for required keys or possible types of resource.

If your file contains apiVersion and kind, but it is not a Kubernetes file, you can disable such validation. You can suppress inspections and change their scope and severity in Settings | Editor | Inspections | Kubernetes. Or you can mark a file with a special directive to disable validation in it:

On top of a resource configuration file, add # nonk8s.
Alternatively, if you already have a warning about an unknown resource, right-click it in the Problems tool window and select Show Quick-Fixes | Mark this file as non-Kubernetes.

Manage your cluster

Use the Services tool window to view your cluster, switch between namespaces and contexts, and modify the cluster resources.

Edit kubeconfig

The kubeconfig file contains information about clusters, users, namespaces, and authentication.

Open the Services tool window: select View | Tool Windows | Services or press Alt+8.
Select a cluster and, to the left of it, click (Open kubeconfig File in Editor). The action is also available when you right-click any Kubernetes object in the Services tool window.
This will open the kubeconfig file in a new tab of the editor. To change the default file opened by this action, you can specify a path to another file in Path to kubeconfig file.

When you change your kubeconfig file, the configuration is automatically reloaded. You can also reload it manually or disable automatic reload by right-clicking a cluster or any Kubernetes object and selecting More | Reload Configuration Automarically.

Switch between namespaces

Kubernetes namespaces let you logically isolate resources within your cluster. With IntelliJ IDEA, you can quickly switch between namespaces.

Open the Services tool window: select View | Tool Windows | Services or press Alt+8.
Right-click your cluster or any resource, select Namespaces (or click to the left of it), and select the required namespace.
To view resources of all namespaces, select All Namespaces.

Change current context

With IntelliJ IDEA, you can quickly change the current context.

Open the Services tool window: select View | Tool Windows | Services or press Alt+8.
Right-click your cluster or any resource, select Context (or click in the toolbar), and select the required context.

Modify cluster resources

Open the Services tool window: select View | Tool Windows | Services or press Alt+8.
Right-click a resource and select View YAML.
This will open the configuration file of the selected resource in a new tab of the editor. When you change a field, modified lines are highlighted in the gutter. You can click the highlighted area in the gutter to quickly preview or rollback changes.
Click to apply changes to the current context and namespace.

When you modify a resource configuration file, a toolbar appears at the top right. It lets you apply the changes, delete the resource, preview the diff, and rollback the changes.

Create Secrets

With IntelliJ IDEA, you can quickly create Kubernetes Secrets.

Open the Services tool window: select View | Tool Windows | Services or press Alt+8.
Select a cluster, expand Configuration, right-click Secrets, and select Create New Secret.
In the Create New Secret window that opens, specify the secret name, type, and namespace. To speed up secret creation, IntelliJ IDEA adds required data or annotation keys depending on the selected secret type.
In the Data and Annotations section, click Value and enter values for existing keys, or you can click and choose the way to provide values:
- Add Manually to manually enter the value.
- Use File Data to select a file (for example, an SSH key file or a Docker config.json) to use the file contents as the value.

You can view all your Secrets in the Services tool window, under Configuration. Once a Secret is created, you can start typing its name in secretName fields of your Pod configuration. This will invoke completion for Secret names available in the cluster or in your project.

Helm support

Helm is a tool for managing Kubernetes applications. Helm charts are packages of pre-configured resource definitions that you run inside a Kubernetes cluster. A chart contains a description of the package Chart.yaml and one or more templates used to generate Kubernetes manifest files.

Coding assistance for Helm charts and templates includes code completion, refactorings, inspections, quick-fixes, and quick documentation. Code completion includes values of dependencies from the specified repository (by default, from Helm Hub).

In Go template directives, IntelliJ IDEA provides completion for Helm built-in objects and for values passed from a values.yaml file. You can press Control+B to navigate to a source of object values, for example, to a child chart value imported into a parent chart.

In template objects, you can use code folding: press NumPad-NumPad-+ and NumPad-NumPad-- to toggle between values and directives. You can also hover over a value to expand and show the directive.

You can also use gutter icons for navigating between label definitions and label selectors, and between overridden and overriding values.

Create a new Helm chart

In the Project tool window, right-click a folder and select New | Helm Chart.
In the Create New Helm Chart window that opens, enter a name for the chart.

This runs the helm create command, which adds all the basic files required to get started:

.helmignore: Patterns to ignore when building packages
Chart.yaml: A basic chart description with metadata
values.yaml: Default values for chart templates
charts/: Directory for sub-charts
templates/: Directory for chart definitions
- _helpers.tpl: Partials and functions for your templates
- NOTES.txt: Information that is printed out after a chart is deployed
- deployment.yaml: Example Kubernetes deployment definition
- ingress.yaml: Example Kubernetes ingress definition
- service.yaml: Example Kubernetes service definition

Preview the result of Helm template rendering

If a template file is opened in the editor, click on the right side of the editor.
Alternatively, right-click the template file in your project, point to Helm, and select Helm Template.

This runs the helm template command that renders a chart template. The rendered preview opens inside the diff viewer to compare it with the original template file.

Update external dependencies

Right-click the chart, point to Helm, and click Helm Dependency Update.

This runs the helm dependency update command.

In Helm 2, dependencies should be specified in the requirements.yaml file. This action also generates or updates requirements.lock.

In Helm 3, dependencies should be specified in the Chart.yaml file. If you specify the dependencies in the wrong file, IntelliJ IDEA provides an inspection with a quick-fix to move them.

Examine a chart for possible issues

Right-click the chart, point to Helm, and click Helm Lint.

This runs the helm lint command that executes a series of tests to discover possible problems without actually installing the chart.

Custom resource definitions support

If you extend the Kubernetes cluster with custom resources, IntelliJ IDEA can validate them with custom resource definition (CRD) specifications.

Specify the path to CRD specifications

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Languages & Frameworks | Kubernetes.
Click and either select a local CRD file or specify a URL. Then click OK.

Use and to rearrange the list of CRD files. This defines the priority for conflicting definitions: IntelliJ IDEA will use the lowest one if it is defined in more than one file.

By default, CRDs are applied to the current project only. Change the Scope: option to IDE if you want a certain CRD to be available for any project that you open with this IDE instance.

To load the CRD from the running Kubernetes cluster, enable Use API schema from the active cluster if available.

You can view CRDs for the current cluster, including all their applied resources, under the Kubernetes node of the Services tool window.

The Kubernetes plugin supports CRD files of the following types:

CustomResourceDefinition files in YAML

The following example shows a simple CustomResourceDefinition specification for a custom resource stable.example.com/v1 of the kind CronTab. Obligatory fields to identify the resource are metadata.name, spec.group, spec.versions, and spec.names.

apiVersion: apiextensions.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: CustomResourceDefinition
metadata:
  name: crontabs.stable.example.com # Obligatory field to identify the resource
spec:
  group: stable.example.com # Obligatory field to identify the resource
  versions: # Obligatory field to identify the resource
    - name: v1
      served: true
      storage: true
  scope: Namespaced
  names: # Obligatory field to identify the resource
    plural: crontabs
    singular: crontab
    kind: CronTab
    shortNames:
      - ct
validation:
  openAPIV3Schema: # Schema for validating custom objects
    properties:
      spec:
        properties:
          cronSpec:
            type: string
            pattern: '^(\d+|\*)(/\d+)?(\s+(\d+|\*)(/\d+)?){4}$' # not supported for validation
          replicas:
            type: integer
            minimum: 1 # not supported for validation
            maximum: 10 # not supported for validation

OpenAPI v2.0 schema in JSON

The following example shows a simple OpenAPI v2.0 schema with a CRD specification for a custom resource sample/v1 of the kind Config. The root definition of the custom resource must contain the x-kubernetes-group-version-kind field with the specified group, version, and kind. In the example, the root.Definition object uses a build property to reference the some.Definition object.

{
    "swagger": "2.0",
    "info": {
        "title": "Sample Schema",
        "version": "sample/v1"
    },
    "paths": {},
    "definitions": {
        "some.Definition": {
            "description": "Example of a definition.",
            "properties": {
                "someProperty": {
                    "type": "string"
                }
            }
        },
        "root.Definition": {
            "description": "This is the root definition for the resource",
            "properties": {
                "build": {
                    "$ref": "#/definitions/some.Definition"
                }
            },
            "x-kubernetes-group-version-kind": [
                {
                    "group": "sample",
                    "kind": "Config",
                    "version": "v1"
                }
            ]
        }
    }
}

CRD validation restrictions

IntelliJ IDEA does not support the following OpenAPI v3 schema features:

multipleOf
maximum
exclusiveMaximum
minimum
exclusiveMinimum
maxLength
minLength
pattern
maxItems
minItems
uniqueItems
maxProperties
minProperties
allOf
oneOf
anyOf
not
format
default
nullable
readOnly
writeOnly
xml
externalDocs
example
deprecated

Productivity tips

If you use the features described here frequently, the following tips may be helpful:

Assign shortcuts

You can assign a keyboard shortcut for Kubernetes actions.

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), select Keymap.
Type kubernetes in the search field, then double-click an action to set a shortcut for it.

Alternatively, you can use the Find Action dialog Control+Shift+A, type the necessary action and, and press Alt+Enter.

For example, you can assign a shortcut to Interact with Cluster to quickly open the context menu while modifying a resource configuration file.

Configure code folding

By default, IntelliJ IDEA uses code folding to render value references in Helm templates and definitions in Kubernetes configuration files as the actual values. You can click the value to expand it or press NumPad-NumPad-+ and NumPad-NumPad-- to toggle folding. If you want to see the references and definitions expanded by default, do the following:

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), select Editor | General | Code Folding.
On the Code Folding page, clear the necessary checkboxes:
- Kubernetes: value references in Helm templates
- Kubernetes: EnvVar definitions in YAML files
- Kubernetes: ExecAction definitions in YAML files

Last modified: 21 June 2023