New Kubernetes Provider Available

We've rebuilt the StackQL Kubernetes provider from the ground up:

• k8s - every built-in control plane API group in a pinned Kubernetes minor release (currently 1.36): core, apps, batch, autoscaling, networking, storage, rbac, policy, apiextensions, admissionregistration, certificates, coordination, discovery, events, flowcontrol, node, scheduling, authentication, authorization and apiregistration (20 services, 152 resources, 573 operations)

The provider is generated from the per-group specs published in the Kubernetes repository, so the same provider works against kind, EKS, GKE, AKS, OpenShift or bare metal. Subresources (status, scale, log, eviction, binding, approval) are first-class resources, list pagination is traversed transparently, and LIMIT and label/field selectors are pushed down to the API server.

Connect with kubectl proxy

The provider defaults to null_auth, designed for the kubectl proxy workflow - the proxy authenticates with your kubeconfig (including the EKS, GKE and AKS credential plugins), and StackQL connects to the local port with no configuration:

kubectl proxy --port=8001
export KUBE_HOST='localhost:8001'
export KUBE_PROTOCOL='http'
stackql shell

KUBE_HOST and KUBE_PROTOCOL resolve the provider's server variables from the environment, so queries carry no connection clauses at all (an explicit WHERE protocol = ... AND cluster_addr = ... still wins when you want to address another cluster in the same session).

The cluster is a database

Row columns are the top-level fields of each object (metadata, spec, status, data); nested values are one json_extract away. The pod estate with phase and node placement:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.namespace') AS namespace,
       json_extract(metadata, '$.name') AS name,
       json_extract(status, '$.phase') AS phase,
       json_extract(spec, '$.nodeName') AS node
FROM k8s.core.pods_all_namespaces;

Pods that are not running - a one-line cluster health check:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.namespace') AS namespace,
       json_extract(metadata, '$.name') AS name,
       json_extract(status, '$.phase') AS phase
FROM k8s.core.pods_all_namespaces
WHERE json_extract(status, '$.phase') NOT IN ('Running', 'Succeeded');

Desired versus ready replicas for every deployment in a namespace:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.name') AS name,
       json_extract(spec, '$.replicas') AS want,
       json_extract(status, '$.readyReplicas') AS ready
FROM k8s.apps.deployments
WHERE namespace = 'default';

Node inventory with kubelet version and schedulability:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.name') AS name,
       json_extract(status, '$.nodeInfo.kubeletVersion') AS kubelet,
       json_extract(status, '$.nodeInfo.osImage') AS os,
       json_extract(spec, '$.unschedulable') AS cordoned
FROM k8s.core.nodes;

RBAC audit and warning events

Column names are snake_case at the SQL surface (role_ref, string_data, api_version), mapped to the API's camelCase on the wire - the same convention as the aws and azure providers. Who is bound to cluster-admin:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.name') AS binding,
       subjects
FROM k8s.rbac.cluster_role_bindings
WHERE json_extract(role_ref, '$.name') = 'cluster-admin';

Recent warning events across the cluster, usually the first place to look when something is off:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.namespace') AS namespace,
       reason,
       message
FROM k8s.core.events_all_namespaces
WHERE type = 'Warning';

Server-side filtering and pagination

Label and field selectors are ordinary WHERE parameters, pushed to the API server so the filtering happens where the data lives:

SELECT json_extract(metadata, '$.name') AS name
FROM k8s.core.pods_all_namespaces
WHERE label_selector = 'k8s-app=kube-dns';

SELECT ... LIMIT n lands on the wire as the Kubernetes limit parameter, and the continue token chain is followed transparently - a SELECT returns all rows even when the API server caps page sizes.

Provision, mutate and tear down

Mutations are the usual SQL verbs - INSERT creates an object, UPDATE applies a merge patch, REPLACE is a full update and DELETE removes it. Body columns are the native wire property names:

-- create
INSERT INTO k8s.core.config_maps(namespace, metadata, data)
SELECT 'default', '{"name": "app-config"}', '{"greeting": "hello"}';

-- partial update (merge patch)
UPDATE k8s.core.config_maps
SET data = '{"mood": "optimistic"}'
WHERE namespace = 'default' AND name = 'app-config';

-- remove it
DELETE FROM k8s.core.config_maps
WHERE namespace = 'default' AND name = 'app-config';

Subresources are resources, so scaling a deployment is an UPDATE on its scale subresource:

UPDATE k8s.apps.deployments_scale
SET spec = '{"replicas": 3}'
WHERE namespace = 'default' AND name = 'web';

and point-in-time pod logs are a queryable column:

SELECT log FROM k8s.core.pods_log
WHERE namespace = 'default' AND name = 'web-6d5f9c7b8-x2x9k';

Streaming operations (exec, attach, port-forward, watch) use protocol upgrades and are out of scope for the generated provider.

Who am I, and can I

The authentication and authorization review kinds are mapped too. The zero-parameter self review is a plain SELECT; the parameterized access reviews are an INSERT whose verdict comes back with RETURNING:

-- who am I
SELECT json_extract(status, '$.userInfo.username') AS username
FROM k8s.authentication.self_subject_reviews;

-- can I delete pods in prod
INSERT INTO k8s.authorization.self_subject_access_reviews(spec)
SELECT '{"resourceAttributes": {"verb": "delete", "resource": "pods", "namespace": "prod"}}'
RETURNING status;

What changed from the original provider

This is a major update to the previous published k8s provider (v23.03.00121):

• Coverage expands from 5 services to all 20 built-in API groups, one flat service per group (networking.k8s.io is k8s.networking)
• Resource names are plural snake_case (k8s.core.pods, k8s.apps.stateful_sets), consistent with the aws, google and databricks providers
• Request body columns are the native wire property names (metadata, spec, data), not data__ prefixed; snake_case spellings of camelCase wire names are accepted everywhere
• SELECT and DESCRIBE columns present as snake_case aliases of the camelCase wire properties
• Namespaced list-all operations are separate _all_namespaces resources, and subresources are separate resources (deployments_scale, pods_log)

The previous provider version remains in the registry for pinning if you need it.

Direct authentication

To skip the proxy and hit the API server directly, supply a bearer token via the KUBE_TOKEN environment variable (the same variable the Terraform Kubernetes provider uses), along with the cluster CA bundle:

export KUBE_TOKEN=$(kubectl create token my-serviceaccount)
AUTH='{ "k8s": { "type": "bearer", "credentialsenvvar": "KUBE_TOKEN" }}'
stackql shell --auth="${AUTH}" --tls.CABundle cluster-ca.pem

For managed clusters, a token from the platform credential helper (aws eks get-token, gke-gcloud-auth-plugin, kubelogin) works the same way; those tokens are short lived, so prefer the proxy vector for long sessions.

Get started

Pull the provider from the public registry:

registry pull k8s;

Provider docs are at k8s-provider.stackql.io. Let us know what you build. Star us on GitHub.