Radar
Modern Kubernetes visibility. Local-first. No account. No cloud dependency. Blazing Fast.
🌐 radarhq.io · Docs · Releases
Topology, event timeline, and service traffic — plus resource browsing, Helm management, and GitOps support for FluxCD and ArgoCD.
Visualize your cluster topology, browse resources, stream logs, exec into pods, inspect container image filesystems, manage Helm releases, monitor GitOps workflows (FluxCD & ArgoCD), and forward ports - all from a single binary with zero cluster-side installation.
Install and run in 30 seconds:
curl -fsSL https://get.radarhq.io | sh && kubectl radar
Why Radar?
- Zero install on your cluster — runs on your laptop, talks to the K8s API directly
- Single binary — no dependencies, no agents, no CRDs
- Blazing fast - smart caching, progressive loading, parallelization and other optimizations
- Airgapped-ready — no external network calls, works in isolated environments
- Real-time — watches your cluster via informers, pushes updates to the browser via SSE
- Works everywhere — GKE, EKS, AKS, minikube, kind, k3s, or any conformant cluster
- AI-ready — built-in MCP server lets AI assistants query your cluster through Radar
- In-cluster option — deploy with Helm for shared team access with RBAC-scoped permissions
Installation
Quick Install:
curl -fsSL https://get.radarhq.io | sh
Homebrew:
brew install skyhook-io/tap/radar
Then run: kubectl radar (or simply radar)
CLI
Krew (kubectl plugin manager):
kubectl krew install radar
Scoop (Windows):
scoop bucket add skyhook https://github.com/skyhook-io/scoop-bucket
scoop install radar
PowerShell (Windows):
irm https://get.radarhq.io/install.ps1 | iex
Direct download — GitHub Releases for macOS, Linux, or Windows.
Desktop App
Native desktop app — no terminal needed.
Homebrew (macOS):
brew install --cask skyhook-io/tap/radar-desktop
Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install ./radar-desktop_*.deb
Fedora/RHEL:
sudo rpm -i radar-desktop_*.rpm
Scoop (Windows):
scoop bucket add skyhook https://github.com/skyhook-io/scoop-bucket
scoop install radar-desktop
Windows (direct download) — GitHub Releases.
In-Cluster Deployment
Deploy to your cluster for shared team access:
helm repo add skyhook https://skyhook-io.github.io/helm-charts
helm install radar skyhook/radar -n radar --create-namespace
See the In-Cluster Deployment Guide for ingress, authentication, and RBAC configuration.
Usage
# Opens browser automatically
kubectl radar
# Or simply
radar
CLI Flags
| Flag | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
--kubeconfig |
~/.kube/config |
Path to kubeconfig file |
--kubeconfig-dir |
Comma-separated directories containing kubeconfig files | |
--namespace |
(all) | Initial namespace filter (supports multi-select in the UI; also used as RBAC fallback for namespace-scoped users) |
--port |
9280 |
Server port |
--no-browser |
false |
Don't auto-open browser |
--browser |
Browser to use when opening the UI, e.g. firefox, google-chrome, or Google Chrome on macOS |
|
--timeline-storage |
memory |
Timeline storage backend: memory or sqlite |
--timeline-db |
~/.radar/timeline.db |
Path to SQLite database (when using sqlite storage) |
--timeline-max-size |
1Gi |
Maximum SQLite DB + WAL size before pruning oldest events (e.g. 800Mi, 8Gi; 0 disables) |
--history-limit |
10000 |
Maximum events to retain in timeline |
--disable-exec |
false |
Disable terminal and debug shell |
--disable-helm-write |
false |
Disable Helm write operations |
--disable-local-terminal |
false |
Disable local terminal feature |
--debug-image |
busybox:latest |
Image for ephemeral debug containers and node debug pods. Point at a mirror for air-gapped / private-registry clusters. |
--list-page-size |
0 (off) |
Paginate the initial LIST of high-cardinality kinds (Pods, ReplicaSets) at this size. Helps very large clusters that fail to sync; only used when WatchList streaming is unavailable. Try 2000. |
--context-switch-timeout |
30s |
Maximum time a kubeconfig context switch may take. Widen on high-latency control planes — see Tuning for slow clusters. Env: RADAR_CONTEXT_SWITCH_TIMEOUT. |
--first-paint-backstop |
5m |
Hard upper bound on the initial critical-cache sync wait before Radar falls through to a partial-data render. Env: RADAR_FIRST_PAINT_BACKSTOP. |
--namespace-list-timeout |
5s |
Timeout for the cluster-wide namespace LIST used to decide if the user is RBAC-namespace-restricted. A timeout on a slow control plane is misreported in the UI as "Limited list — RBAC". Env: RADAR_NAMESPACE_LIST_TIMEOUT. |
--max-scope-candidates |
20 |
Cap on the namespace-fallback probe fanout (used by accounts that can list namespaces cluster-wide but not list a specific kind cluster-wide). Raise above 20 for clusters with more than 20 namespaces. Env: RADAR_MAX_SCOPE_CANDIDATES. |
--prometheus-url |
(auto-discover) | Manual Prometheus/VictoriaMetrics URL (skips auto-discovery) |
--prometheus-header |
HTTP header sent with every Prometheus request, format Key=Value (repeatable). Required for auth-protected backends. |
|
--prometheus-header-from-env |
HTTP header sent with every Prometheus request, sourced from an environment variable, format Key=ENV_VAR (repeatable). |
|
--auth-mode |
none |
Authentication mode: none, proxy, or oidc (details) |
--no-mcp |
false |
Disable MCP server for AI tool integration |
--mcp-catalog-stdio |
false |
Start only the MCP catalog over stdio for registry introspection |
--version |
Show version and exit |
See Configuration Guide for details on cluster connection precedence, multiple kubeconfig files, and context switching.
Tuning for slow or high-latency clusters
The default deadlines (30 s context switch, 5 m first-paint backstop, 5 s namespace LIST, 20 scope candidates) are tuned for healthy clusters reached over fast, low-latency connections. They are too tight for clusters reached over SSH tunnels, geographically distant control planes, or accounts subject to API-server throttling, where they surface as one of three symptoms:
- "Context switch timed out" toasts when the cache eventually does sync
- "Limited list — RBAC doesn't allow listing all namespaces" even though the account has cluster-wide list permission (the LIST timed out, not RBAC)
- Kinds silently marked denied because the namespace they live in fell past the 20-entry candidate cap
Widen the four flags via CLI or via the matching environment variables
(RADAR_CONTEXT_SWITCH_TIMEOUT, RADAR_FIRST_PAINT_BACKSTOP,
RADAR_NAMESPACE_LIST_TIMEOUT, RADAR_MAX_SCOPE_CANDIDATES) — env vars
keep secrets out of ps and let in-cluster deployments source the values
from a ConfigMap:
# CLI
kubectl radar \
--context-switch-timeout=120s \
--first-paint-backstop=10m \
--namespace-list-timeout=30s \
--max-scope-candidates=200
# Environment (e.g. in a Deployment manifest)
RADAR_CONTEXT_SWITCH_TIMEOUT=120s \
RADAR_FIRST_PAINT_BACKSTOP=10m \
RADAR_NAMESPACE_LIST_TIMEOUT=30s \
RADAR_MAX_SCOPE_CANDIDATES=200 \
kubectl radar
Defaults are preserved when neither the flag nor the env var is set, so existing deployments are unaffected.
Views
Topology
Interactive graph showing how your Kubernetes resources are connected in real-time.
- Two modes: Resources (full hierarchy) and Traffic (network flow path)
- Group by namespace, app label, or view ungrouped
- Filter by resource kind — click any node for full details
- Auto-layout powered by ELK.js, live updates via SSE
Resources
Table-based resource browser with smart columns per resource kind.