MCP Server that can connect to a Kubernetes cluster and manage it.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kubernetes": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-kubernetes"]
    }
  }
}

The server will automatically connect to your current kubectl context. Make sure you have:

1. kubectl installed and in your PATH
2. A valid kubeconfig file with contexts configured
3. Access to a Kubernetes cluster configured for kubectl (e.g. minikube, Rancher Desktop, GKE, etc.)
4. Helm v3 installed and in your PATH (no Tiller required). Optional if you don't plan to use Helm.

You can verify your connection by asking Claude to list your pods or create a test deployment.

If you have errors open up a standard terminal and run kubectl get pods to see if you can connect to your cluster without credentials issues.

mcp-chat is a CLI chat client for MCP servers. You can use it to interact with the Kubernetes server.

npx mcp-chat --server "npx mcp-server-kubernetes"

Alternatively, pass it your existing Claude Desktop configuration file from above (Linux should pass the correct path to config):

Mac:

npx mcp-chat --config "~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json"

Windows:

npx mcp-chat --config "%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json"

• Connect to a Kubernetes cluster
• List all pods, services, deployments
• List, Describe nodes
• Create, describe, delete a pod
• List all namespaces, create a namespace
• Create custom pod & deployment configs, update deployment replicas
• Create, describe, delete, update a service
• Create, get, update, delete a ConfigMap
• Get logs from a pod for debugging (supports pods, deployments, jobs, and label selectors)
• Support Helm v3 for installing charts
  • Install charts with custom values
  • Uninstall releases
  • Upgrade existing releases
  • Support for namespaces
  • Support for version specification
  • Support for custom repositories
• kubectl explain and kubectl api-resources support
• Get Kubernetes events from the cluster
• Port forward to a pod or service
• Create, list, and decribe cronjobs
• Non-destructive mode for read and create/update-only access to clusters

Make sure that you have bun installed. Clone the repo & install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/Flux159/mcp-server-kubernetes.git
cd mcp-server-kubernetes
bun install

1. Start the server in development mode (watches for file changes):

bun run dev

2. Run unit tests:

bun run test

3. Build the project:

bun run build

4. Local Testing with Inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js
# Follow further instructions on terminal for Inspector link

5. Local testing with Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-kubernetes": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/your/mcp-server-kubernetes/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

6. Local testing with mcp-chat

bun run chat

See the CONTRIBUTING.md file for details.

For more advanced information like using SSE transport, Non-destructive mode with ALLOW_ONLY_NON_DESTRUCTIVE_TOOLS, see the ADVANCED_README.md.

See this DeepWiki link for a more indepth architecture overview created by Devin.

This section describes the high-level architecture of the MCP Kubernetes server.

The sequence diagram below illustrates how requests flow through the system:

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant Transport as StdioTransport
    participant Server as MCP Server
    participant Handler as Request Handler
    participant K8sManager as KubernetesManager
    participant K8s as Kubernetes API

    Client->>Transport: Send Request via STDIO
    Transport->>Server: Forward Request

    alt Tools Request
        Server->>Handler: Route to tools handler
        Handler->>K8sManager: Execute tool operation
        K8sManager->>K8s: Make API call
        K8s-->>K8sManager: Return result
        K8sManager-->>Handler: Process response
        Handler-->>Server: Return tool result
    else Resource Request
        Server->>Handler: Route to resource handler
        Handler->>K8sManager: Get resource data
        K8sManager->>K8s: Query API
        K8s-->>K8sManager: Return data
        K8sManager-->>Handler: Format response
        Handler-->>Server: Return resource data
    end

    Server-->>Transport: Send Response
    Transport-->>Client: Return Final Response

Go to the releases page, click on "Draft New Release", click "Choose a tag" and create a new tag by typing out a new version number using "v{major}.{minor}.{patch}" semver format. Then, write a release title "Release v{major}.{minor}.{patch}" and description / changelog if necessary and click "Publish Release".

This will create a new tag which will trigger a new release build via the cd.yml workflow. Once successful, the new release will be published to npm. Note that there is no need to update the package.json version manually, as the workflow will automatically update the version number in the package.json file & push a commit to main.

Authentication / adding clusters to kubectx.