kubectl-pvc-explorer

A kubectl plugin for browsing and managing PVC contents via the pvc-explorer operator.

Use your existing kubeconfig for authentication — no extra login or credentials required.

kubectl pvc list
kubectl pvc ls my-pvc -n my-namespace /data/logs
kubectl pvc cp my-pvc:/remote/file.txt ./local-file.txt

Relationship to the Operator

The CLI plugin communicates with the PVC Explorer operator installed in your cluster:

kubectl pvc

CLI plugin

kubeconfig

pvc-explorer

Operator

proxies

pvc-explorer-agent

Agent pod

The plugin reads the bearer token from the *-agent-token Secret automatically, so there is no separate login step.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/pvc-explorer-operator/kubectl-pvc-explorer.git
cd kubectl-pvc-explorer
make install

Verify:

kubectl plugin list
kubectl pvc --version

Prerequisites

• Go 1.26+
• kubectl with a valid kubeconfig pointing to a cluster with PVC Explorer installed
• macOS: macFUSE (only for the mount command)

Commands

Command	Description
kubectl pvc cat <pvc> <path>	Display file contents
kubectl pvc cp <src> <dest>	Upload/download files (supports glob patterns)
kubectl pvc exec <pvc> -- <cmd>	Execute commands inside the agent pod
kubectl pvc list	List all PVCExplorer resources
kubectl pvc ls <pvc> [path]	List files on a PVC
kubectl pvc mount <pvc> <dir>	FUSE mount (experimental)
kubectl pvc sleep <pvc>	Scale agent back to 0
kubectl pvc wake <pvc>	Scale agent from 0 to 1 (--wait 2m to wait for readiness)

Quick Start

# Wake the agent
kubectl pvc wake my-pvc -n my-namespace

# Browse files
kubectl pvc ls my-pvc -n my-namespace /data

# Download a file
kubectl pvc cp my-pvc:/data/config.yaml ./config.yaml

# Upload a file
kubectl pvc cp ./local-file.txt my-pvc:/remote/dir/

# Execute a command
kubectl pvc exec my-pvc -n my-namespace -- ls -la

# Sleep when done
kubectl pvc sleep my-pvc -n my-namespace

Local Development

The project includes a Kind-based local environment in the pvc-explorer repo:

cd pvc-explorer
./kind/setup.sh
cd ../kubectl-pvc-explorer
make install
kubectl pvc list

Repository

• Source: github.com/pvc-explorer-operator/kubectl-pvc-explorer
• License: Apache 2.0