inkube - Be in the cluster, without being in the cluster.

Run your services locally while mirroring the runtime environment of a Kubernetes pod. Get cluster access, environment variables and also tunnel traffic to your local machine from kubernetes cluster.

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🔍 Overview

inkube enables developers to run their services locally while mirroring the runtime environment of a Kubernetes pod. This means:

• You get access to the same environment variables, secrets, and config maps as the pod.
• Network traffic to and from the pod is intercepted and redirected to your local service.
• You can test, debug, and iterate locally, with full cluster integration — no redeploys needed.

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✨ Features

• 🧩 Pod Environment Mirroring: Clone envs, secrets, ConfigMaps, and volumes from an existing pod.
• 🌐 Traffic Interception: Seamlessly redirect traffic between the cluster and your local machine.
• 🔐 Secrets Mounting: Automatically mount Kubernetes secrets locally in memory or as files.
• 🧪 Live Development Mode: Run and test services locally while communicating with real cluster services.
• 🎯 Namespace + Context Targeting: Select specific contexts and namespaces per session.

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Architecture

⚙️ Prerequisites

• kubeconfig file
• kubevpn
• devbox
• nix will be automatically installed by devbox

Please make sure you fullfill the prerequisites before using inkube.

⚠️ Do not use in production clusters, this is only for development clusters and making devlopment easier.

📦 Installation

# install the binary
go install github.com/abdheshnayak/inkube@latest

🚀 Usage

# create a new devbox config file
devbox init

# create a new inkube config file
inkube init

This command will create a inkube.yaml file in the current directory, which will be used to store the configuration for inkube.

# switch to a different namespace and context
inkube switch

This command will prompt you to select a namespace and context from the list of available namespaces and contexts.

# start a live development session
inkube dev

This command will start a live development session, intercepting the selected pod and connecting to it. and also bring environment variables of that container.

# connect to cluster based on inkube config
inkube connect

This command will connect to the cluster based on the configuration in the inkube.yaml file.

# disconnect from cluster
inkube disconnect

This command will disconnect from the cluster, and quit the live development session.

# intercept a running pod
inkube intercept

This command will intercept a running pod and connect to it.

# leave an intercepted pod
inkube leave

This command will close interception from the pod, and acutual service will start running.

# quit the live development session

exit # when you will exit the shell, the session will be quit

# or
inkube quit

This command will quit the live development session. including connection, interception and env vars.

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Initialize

Access Development Shell

Intercepting Traffic

Accessing Container Environments

Package Manager

⚠️ inkube is currently in development.