Edit a resource on the server
Synopsis
Edit a resource from the default editor.
The edit command allows you to directly edit any API resource you can retrieve via the command-line tools. It will open the editor defined by your KUBE_EDITOR, or EDITOR environment variables, or fall back to ‘vi’ for Linux or ‘notepad’ for Windows. When attempting to open the editor, it will first attempt to use the shell that has been defined in the ‘SHELL’ environment variable. If this is not defined, the default shell will be used, which is ‘/bin/bash’ for Linux or ‘cmd’ for Windows.
You can edit multiple objects, although changes are applied one at a time. The command accepts file names as well as command-line arguments, although the files you point to must be previously saved versions of resources.
Editing is done with the API version used to fetch the resource. To edit using a specific API version, fully-qualify the resource, version, and group.
The default format is YAML. To edit in JSON, specify “-o json”.
The flag —windows-line-endings can be used to force Windows line endings, otherwise the default for your operating system will be used.
In the event an error occurs while updating, a temporary file will be created on disk that contains your unapplied changes. The most common error when updating a resource is another editor changing the resource on the server. When this occurs, you will have to apply your changes to the newer version of the resource, or update your temporary saved copy to include the latest resource version.
datumctl edit (RESOURCE/NAME | -f FILENAME)
Examples
# Edit the service named 'registry'
kubectl edit svc/registry
# Use an alternative editor
KUBE_EDITOR="nano" kubectl edit svc/registry
# Edit the job 'myjob' in JSON using the v1 API format
kubectl edit job.v1.batch/myjob -o json
# Edit the deployment 'mydeployment' in YAML and save the modified config in its annotation
kubectl edit deployment/mydeployment -o yaml --save-config
# Edit the 'status' subresource for the 'mydeployment' deployment
kubectl edit deployment mydeployment --subresource='status'
Options
| Flag | Type | Description |
|---|
--allow-missing-template-keys | — | If true, ignore any errors in templates when a field or map key is missing in the template. Only applies to golang and jsonpath output formats. (default true) |
--field-manager | string | Name of the manager used to track field ownership. (default "kubectl-edit") |
-f, --filename | strings | Filename, directory, or URL to files to use to edit the resource. |
-h, --help | — | Help for edit. |
-k, --kustomize | string | Process the kustomization directory. This flag can’t be used together with -f or -R. |
-o, --output | string | Output format. One of: (json, yaml, kyaml, name, go-template, go-template-file, template, templatefile, jsonpath, jsonpath-as-json, jsonpath-file). |
--output-patch | — | Output the patch if the resource is edited. |
-R, --recursive | — | Process the directory used in -f, --filename recursively. |
--save-config | — | If true, the configuration of current object will be saved in its annotation. This flag is useful when you want to perform kubectl apply on this object in the future. |
--show-managed-fields | — | If true, keep the managedFields when printing objects in JSON or YAML format. |
--subresource | string | If specified, edit will operate on the subresource of the requested object. |
--template | string | Template string or path to template file to use when -o=go-template or -o=go-template-file. |
--validate | string | Must be one of: strict (or true), warn, ignore (or false). (default "strict") |
--windows-line-endings | — | Defaults to the line ending native to your platform. |
Options inherited from parent commands
| Flag | Type | Description |
|---|
--as | string | Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace. |
--as-group | stringArray | Group to impersonate for the operation. Can be repeated to specify multiple groups. |
--as-uid | string | UID to impersonate for the operation. |
--as-user-extra | stringArray | User extras to impersonate for the operation. Can be repeated to specify multiple values for the same key. |
--certificate-authority | string | Path 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-frequency | duration | Maximum number of seconds between log flushes. (default 5s) |
-n, --namespace | string | If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request. |
--organization | string | Organization name. |
--platform-wide | — | Access the platform root instead of a project or organization control plane. |
--project | string | Project name. |
--request-timeout | string | The 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, --server | string | The address and port of the Kubernetes API server. |
--tls-server-name | string | Server name to use for server certificate validation. If not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used. |
--token | string | Bearer token for authentication to the API server. |
--user | string | The name of the kubeconfig user to use. |
-v, --v | Level | Number for the log level verbosity. |
--vmodule | moduleSpec | Comma-separated list of pattern=N settings for file-filtered logging (only works for the default text log format). |
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
