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Show details of a specific resource or group of resources

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Synopsis

Show details of a specific resource or group of resources. Print a detailed description of the selected resources, including related resources such as events or controllers. You may select a single object by name, all objects of that type, provide a name prefix, or label selector. For example: $ kubectl describe TYPE NAME_PREFIX will first check for an exact match on TYPE and NAME_PREFIX. If no such resource exists, it will output details for every resource that has a name prefixed with NAME_PREFIX. Use “datumctl api-resources” for a complete list of supported resources. 
datumctl describe (-f FILENAME | TYPE [NAME_PREFIX | -l label] | TYPE/NAME)

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Examples

  # Describe a node
  kubectl describe nodes kubernetes-node-emt8.c.myproject.internal

  # Describe a pod
  kubectl describe pods/nginx

  # Describe a pod identified by type and name in "pod.json"
  kubectl describe -f pod.json

  # Describe all pods
  kubectl describe pods

  # Describe pods by label name=myLabel
  kubectl describe pods -l name=myLabel

  # Describe all pods managed by the 'frontend' replication controller
  # (rc-created pods get the name of the rc as a prefix in the pod name)
  kubectl describe pods frontend

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Options

FlagTypeDescription
-A, --all-namespaces—If present, list the requested object(s) across all namespaces. Namespace in current context is ignored even if specified with --namespace.
--chunk-sizeintReturn large lists in chunks rather than all at once. Pass 0 to disable. (default 500)
-f, --filenamestringsFilename, directory, or URL to files containing the resource to describe.
-h, --help—Help for describe.
-k, --kustomizestringProcess the kustomization directory. This flag can’t be used together with -f or -R.
-R, --recursive—Process the directory used in -f, --filename recursively.
-l, --selectorstringSelector (label query) to filter on, supports =, ==, !=, in, notin.
--show-events—If true, display events related to the described object. (default true)

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Options inherited from parent commands

FlagTypeDescription
--asstringUsername to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.
--as-groupstringArrayGroup to impersonate for the operation. Can be repeated to specify multiple groups.
--as-uidstringUID to impersonate for the operation.
--as-user-extrastringArrayUser extras to impersonate for the operation. Can be repeated to specify multiple values for the same key.
--certificate-authoritystringPath to a cert file for the certificate authority.
--disable-compression—If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server.
--insecure-skip-tls-verify—If true, the server’s certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure.
--log-flush-frequencydurationMaximum number of seconds between log flushes. (default 5s)
-n, --namespacestringIf present, the namespace scope for this CLI request.
--organizationstringOrganization name.
--platform-wide—Access the platform root instead of a project or organization control plane.
--projectstringProject name.
--request-timeoutstringThe length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don’t timeout requests. (default "0")
-s, --serverstringThe address and port of the Kubernetes API server.
--tls-server-namestringServer name to use for server certificate validation. If not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used.
--tokenstringBearer token for authentication to the API server.
--userstringThe name of the kubeconfig user to use.
-v, --vLevelNumber for the log level verbosity.
--vmodulemoduleSpecComma-separated list of pattern=N settings for file-filtered logging (only works for the default text log format).

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See also

  • datumctl - A CLI for interacting with the Datum platform
Auto generated by spf13/cobra on 24-Feb-2026
Last modified on March 25, 2026