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

More installation options ↓

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)

More install options — Desktop App (macOS/Linux/Windows), Krew, Scoop, In-Cluster Helm

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

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.

Topology View — Visualize resource relationships

• 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.

Resources View — Browse and filter all cluster resources

• Browse all resource types including CRDs
• Search by name, filter by status or problems (CrashLoopBackOff, ImagePullBackOff, etc.)
• Add custom columns from any label or annotation — sortable, filterable, and resizable
• Click any resource for YAML manifest, related resources, logs, and events

Image Filesystem Viewer

Inspect container image filesystems directly from the Pod view — no need to pull images locally or exec into containers.

Image Filesystem Viewer — Browse container image contents

• Click any container image in a Pod to browse its complete filesystem
• Tree view with file sizes, permissions, and symlink targets
• Search files by name across the entire image
• Download individual files for inspection
• Works with public images (Docker Hub, Quay, GHCR) and private registries (GCR, ECR, ACR) using your cluster's ImagePullSecrets
• Disk-based layer caching for fast repeated access

Timeline

Unified timeline of Kubernetes events and resource changes.

Timeline View — Track cluster activity in real-time

• Filter by event type (all or warnings only)
• Resource change diffs showing what changed (replicas, images, etc.)
• Real-time updates as new events occur

Helm

Manage Helm releases deployed in your cluster — inspect values and rendered manifests, diff revisions, identify failed upgrades and rollback-after-failure patterns, diagnose failed hooks, upgrade, rollback, and uninstall. Radar tracks available chart upgrades (from your configured repos or your own OCI registries) and lets you pick a specific target version. See Helm Support for the detailed behavior and limits.

Helm View — Manage your Helm deployments

• View all releases across namespaces with status, chart version, app version, resource health, storage namespace, and Flux ownership
• Inspect values, compare revisions across values/manifests/notes/resources, and view release history
• Surface failed upgrades, stuck pending operations, rollback history, and inferred atomic-style rollbacks
• Correlate failed/running hooks with remaining Job, Pod, Event, and redacted log evidence
• Upgrade, rollback, or uninstall releases directly from the UI

Compare Resources

Diff any two Kubernetes resources of the same kind side-by-side — like comparing a staging Deployment to its production sibling, or two pods that should be identical but aren't.

Compare View — Side-by-side YAML diff with field-level highlighting

• Two entry points: a Compare button in the resource detail drawer, or compare mode in the resource table (toggle, pick two rows, hit Compare)
• Side-by-side or unified view, with one-click swap of A ↔ B
• Diff-only mode collapses unchanged regions so you only see what d