Installation

As a prerequisite, you must first install kubectl.

Caution

Because kubecolor internally calls kubectl command, if you are using unsupported kubectl version, it’s also not supported by kubecolor. Kubernetes version support policy can be found in official doc.

Kubecolor can be installed in various ways through a number of package managers. If you don’t have any of the package managers available, then consider downloading the binary.

Note

We only add new repositories and ways to install kubecolor on demand. If you feel like your favorite package manager is missing, then please file a feature request.

The badges below each section show the latest version available for that package repository. Green means that it’s up-to-date, while red means outdated.

Homebrew

For MacOS (and some Linux) users using the Homebrew package manager.

brew install kubecolor

Note

If you previously installed kubecolor using the old brew install kubecolor/tap/kubecolor command, remove it first:

brew uninstall kubecolor
brew untap kubecolor/tap
brew update
brew install kubecolor

Scoop

For Windows users using the Scoop package manager.

scoop install kubecolor

Nix

nix-shell -p kubecolor

AUR (Arch User Repositories)

For Arch-Linux users (e.g Manjaro, ChimeraOS, EndeavourOS).

yay -Syu kubecolor

Termux (Android)

For Android users using the Termux app.

pkg install kubecolor

asdf

For users using the asdf package manager.

asdf install kubecolor latest

mise

For users using the mise package manager.

mise use kubecolor

Download binary via GitHub release

Go to Release page then download the binary which fits your environment.

Compile from source

Requires Go 1.22 (or later)

go install github.com/kubecolor/kubecolor@latest

Docker

Running it via Docker can be nice for just trying out kubecolor:

docker run --rm -it -v $HOME/.kube:/home/nonroot/.kube:ro ghcr.io/kubecolor/kubecolor get pods

Note

If you’re getting the error permission denied (common in environments like WSL):

error: error loading config file "/home/nonroot/.kube/config": open /home/nonroot/.kube/config: permission denied

then try changing the permission of your ~/.kube/config file:

chmod 644 ~/.kube/config