MCP Server Kubernetes

Usage with Claude Desktop

{
  "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.

Usage with mcp-chat

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"

Features

• Connect to a Kubernetes cluster
• List all pods
• List all services
• List all deployments
• List all nodes
• Create a pod
• Delete a pod
• Describe a pod
• List all namespaces
• Create a namespace
• Create custom pod & deployment configs
• 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

Local Development

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

Development Workflow

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 

npm run chat

Contributing

See the CONTRIBUTING.md file for details.

Advanced

For more advanced information like using SSE transport, see the ADVANCED_README.md.

Architecture

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

Request Flow

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

Not planned

Authentication / adding clusters to kubectx.