sofka

A Kubernetes TUI written in Rust, on kube-rs and ratatui. Async everywhere, so the UI never blocks on the cluster.

sofka.rs - the website, with a watchable tour of a real session (sofka.rs/#play).

Why "sofka"

That's Sophie, a Russian Blue. She sits behind the monitor and watches the screen. Constantly, not sometimes. She has the narrow-eyed look of someone who has seen a pod in CrashLoopBackOff. She catches every state change and doesn't get distracted. She is, in effect, a cluster watchman that is a cat.

sofka is the Serbian short form of Sophia, which means "wisdom". A good cluster TUI and a good cat both watch things closely, and both know when something is wrong.

What it does

sofka is a Kubernetes terminal interface inspired by k9s. It uses a shared object pipeline. Both programs support built-in and custom resources. The main functions are:

• Custom resource browsing - one generic render pipeline, built-in columns for common kinds, NAME/AGE for the rest, and enter on a CRD drills into its custom resources.
• Flux CD built in - t suspends, resumes, and reconciles through native API patches. No flux binary. Plus a native Helm inspector that decodes release Secrets itself.
• Argo CD built in - t suspends, resumes, and syncs ArgoCD Applications. ApplicationSets support suspend and resume. These actions use native API patches. No argocd binary.
• It tells you why something is broken - X opens a deterministic, evidence-based incident view. No AI, no external service.
• Bulk actions - space marks rows for delete, kill, or Flux actions across many resources at once.
• Port-forwards run in the background - starting one doesn't freeze the TUI, and :pf manages them all.
• Guardrails and read-only mode - "never delete in prod" is enforced, not remembered.
• Skins - Catppuccin, Gruvbox, Solarized, Nord, Dracula, Tokyo Night, One Dark, Rosé Pine, Rosé Pine Dawn, Monokai, Flexoki, with auto dark/light detection.

The full feature list is long. So is the comparison with k9s, with shared functions and design differences.

Installation

Every release ships prebuilt binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows (aarch64/x86_64). Windows ZIP files contain sofka.exe and the license notices. Linux releases also include DEB, RPM, Arch Linux, and Alpine APK packages. See release packages for installation and platform limits.

brew install nklmilojevic/sofka/sofka   # Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
nix run github:nklmilojevic/sofka       # Nix, nothing to install
cargo install sofka                     # Cargo

Or build from source: cargo build --release (see Development).

Use the Home Manager module to install Sofka and manage its configuration with Nix.

macOS: "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified"

The release binaries aren't signed or notarized yet, so Gatekeeper refuses a tarball you downloaded in a browser. Nothing is broken. Clear the quarantine flag once:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine sofka

(Or right-click the binary in Finder, pick Open, confirm once.)

Usage

sofka [RESOURCE] [-n NAMESPACE] [-A] [--context NAME] [--kubeconfig PATH] [--readonly | --write]

  RESOURCE          resource to open (alias/plural/kind), default: pods
  -n, --namespace   namespace to start in
  -A, --all-namespaces
  --context         kubeconfig context to start in (default: current context)
  --kubeconfig      kubeconfig file to use (sets $KUBECONFIG for the session)
  --allow-v1-client-cert  allow X.509 v1 client certificates for this run
  --readonly        disable every mutating action for the session
  --write           force write mode, overriding any config `readonly`
  --experimental-describe  use deskribe for native resource descriptions

Use sofka ctx or sofka contexts to open the context picker before connecting. Select a context to connect and open its configured default resource, or pods. --context NAME selects the initial context in the picker. An unknown name returns an error. -n and -A apply to the first successful selection only. These launch commands require interactive mode and cannot be used with --check or --snapshot.

--readonly and --write set the mode for the whole session and win over the config readonly option, including per-cluster and per-context overrides, on every :ctx switch. With no flag, switching into a context whose config sets readonly = true enables read-only mode (shown as [read-only] in the header), and switching away restores write mode.

Headless modes need no TTY and double as CI smoke tests:

sofka --check                # connect, run discovery, print a summary, exit
sofka pods --snapshot        # render one frame of a resource view to stdout
sofka dp -A --snapshot       # deployments, all namespaces
sofka info                   # runtime diagnostics: build, config, discovery, latency, dirs
sofka info --offline         # the same report without connecting to a cluster
sofka plugin search          # search the official reviewed plugin catalog
sofka plugin install ID      # install the latest compatible package
sofka plugin update          # explicitly update all managed packages
sofka plugin list            # offline installed-package inventory

Native describe is experimental and uses the standalone deskribe Rust library. Enable it with --experimental-describe or [experimental] native_describe = true in config to use it for d. Kubectl remains the default. See configuration.

Keys

The essentials. ? in the app shows everything, or see the full key reference.

Key	Action
:	command palette - fuzzy over kinds, commands, bookmarks, workspaces (:deploy social also works)
/	filter: fuzzy · "exact" · /regex/ · !inverse · -l/-f selectors · status=X age<2h
enter / esc	drill down / go back
j/k, g/G	navigate
ctrl-f / ctrl-b	page forward / back (also PgDn / PgUp)
n / 0 / :ctx	namespace switcher / all namespaces / context switcher
space	mark row for bulk actions
y / d / E	YAML / describe / live events
l / L	logs / VictoriaLogs history
X / T	explain why it's unhealthy / state-change timeline
s / e / a	shell or scale / edit in $EDITOR / attach
f	port-forward - port picker from manifest, ● marks active forwards (:pf manages them)
t	Flux/ArgoCD menu · CronJob trigger · pod file transfer
r / i	rollout restart / set container image
ctrl-d / ctrl-k	delete / force-delete (marked rows, or current)
S / w / ctrl-e	sort picker / wide columns / compact mode
? / :q	help / quit

Configuration

Use config.toml, config.yaml, or config.yml under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sofka (or ~/.config/sofka). Keep one file at each config level. All optional - an empty config behaves like no config. :reload re-reads it live.

default_namespace = "kube-system"
default_resource  = "deployments"
readonly          = false
favorite_namespaces = ["kube-system", "monitoring"]

[aliases]
dep = "deployments"

[skin]
name = "gruvbox-dark"   # omit to auto-detect dark/light

Any option can be overridden per cluster or per kubeconfig context, so prod can be read-only in a light skin while everything else stays as is. See the configuration reference for the rest.

Docs

Doc	What's in it
Features	the complete feature list
vs k9s	shared functions and design differences
Performance benchmark	measured TUI latency, memory use, and binary size
Keys	full keymap, per-view keys
Configuration	every config section, per-cluster/per-context overrides
Views and thresholds	custom columns, CRD printer columns, coloring bands
Plugins	plugins, bookmarks, workspaces, saved forwards
Safety	read-only mode, guardrails, :can-i, action journal
Providers	right-sizing, VictoriaLogs, fleet dashboard
Debugging	explain, timeline, diff, notifications, debug pods, bundles
Architecture	module layout, data flow, dev loop, release process

Contributing

Read the contribution guide for feature discussions, bug reports, development setup, and pull request checks.

License

Dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option - the Rust ecosystem standard.