CRDLens

CRDLens is a terminal-based explorer for Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and Custom Resources (CRs). It helps developers and operators inspect CRD schemas and manage resources efficiently from the command line with a focus on speed.

Features

• CRD Discovery: List all valid CRDs in your cluster with resource counts.
• Hierarchical Schema Explorer: Drill down into complex CRD schemas (OpenAPI v3) with a tree-based view.
• Resource Management: Browse Custom Resources for any CRD with fuzzy filtering and seamless lazy-loading for large lists.
• Smart UX: Proactively suggests switching to all-namespaces mode if no resources are found in the current namespace.
• Deep Inspection: View resource details including YAML configuration, Events, and a structured Fields view.
• Controller Awareness: Monitor CR health with Ready indicators, Drift detection, and a dedicated Reconcile Status view showing live Lag, Silence tracking, and navigable status fields.
• Namespace Awareness: Easily switch between namespaces or view resources across all namespaces.

Controller Awareness Details

CRDLens provides deep insights into the reconciliation state of your resources:

• Status Interpretation: Automatically determines if a resource is Ready, Progressing, Failed, or Terminating.
  • Supports standard Kubernetes conditions.
  • Built-in support for ArgoCD health status (status.health.status).
  • Recognizes common resource Phases (Running, Pending, Bound, etc.).
• Drift Detection: Calculates the difference between metadata.generation and status.observedGeneration.
  • Note: If status.observedGeneration is missing, Drift defaults to 0 (assuming the resource is fully synced or legacy).
• Reconcile View: Shows "Lag" (time since last spec change vs. status update) and "Silence" (time since last status update).

Installation

Download a pre-compiled binary for your operating system from here: https://github.com/pteich/crdlens/releases You need just this binary. It works on OSX (Darwin), Linux and Windows.

There are also prebuilt RPM, DEB and APK packages for your Linux distribution.

Brew

Use Brew to install either with tap:

brew tap pteich/tap
brew install crdlens

or directly:

brew install pteich/tap/crdlens

Scoop

Use Scoop to install via bucket:

scoop bucket add pteich https://github.com/pteich/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install crdlens

Go install

You need a local Go installation to use this method.

go install github.com/pteich/crdlens/cmd/crdlens@latest

Docker

A Docker image is available here: https://github.com/pteich/crdlens/pkgs/container/crdlens It can be used just like the locally installed binary:

docker run ghcr.io/pteich/crdlens:latest -h

Prerequisites

• Go 1.25 or higher
• A running Kubernetes cluster and kubectl configured

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/pteich/crdlens.git
cd crdlens
go build -o crdlens ./cmd/crdlens
mv crdlens /usr/local/bin/

Usage

Simply run crdlens in your terminal. It will use your current kubeconfig context.

crdlens

CLI Flags

Flag	Description
--kubeconfig	Path to the kubeconfig file
--context	The name of the kubeconfig context to use
--namespace	The namespace to use
--all-namespaces	List resources in all namespaces
--enable-counts	Enable CR counts in the CRD list (disabled by default)

Keybindings

Key	Action
Enter	Select item / Drill down into field
Esc / Backspace	Go back / Navigate up hierarchy
?	Toggle Help
/	Filter / Search
n	Switch Namespace
r	Refresh list
s	Open Sort menu (in CR List)
1-4	Quick sort by Status, Name, Drift, or Age
f	Toggle Flat/Hierarchical view (in CRD Spec)
↑/↓	Switch between Conditions and Status tables (in Reconcile view)
Tab	Switch Views (YAML, Fields, Events, Reconcile Status)
q / Ctrl+C	Quit

Screenshots