Installation

The kswitch installation consists of both a kswitch binary and a shell script which needs to be sourced.

NOTE: to invoke kswitch, do not call the kswitch binary directly from the command line. Instead, use the sourced shell function as described in source the shell function.

Option 1 - Homebrew (macOS)

brew tap MichaelSp/kswitch
brew install --cask kswitch

Next, follow required: source the shell function.

Option 2 - Github releases

Download the kswitch binary

OS=linux                        # Pick the right os: linux, darwin (intel only)
VERSION=0.5.0                   # Pick the current version.

curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/kswitch https://github.com/MichaelSp/kswitch/releases/download/${VERSION}/kswitch_${OS}_amd64
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kswitch

If you are using Windows, go to the release webpage using you browser and download the windows binary: https://github.com/MichaelSp/kswitch/releases/
Then copy it to a folder available in your path. To add a folder to your path, you can use the Environment Variables tool for the Windows’ PowerToys: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/environment-variables
If you need to add a folder to the path for the current powershell session, you can run $env:Path += ';C:\myfolder'

Next, follow required: source the shell function.

Option 3 - From source

go get github.com/MichaelSp/kswitch

From the repository root run make build-kswitch. This builds the binaries to /hack/switch/. Copy the build binary for your OS/Architecture to e.g. /usr/local/bin.

Next, follow required: source the shell function.

Required: Source the shell function

Source the shell function which is used to call the kswitch binary. For zsh/bash the name of the shell function is switch and for fish its kswitch. Additionally, installs the command completion script.

Bash

echo 'source <(kswitch init bash)' >> ~/.bashrc

# optionally use alias `s` instead of `switch`
echo 'alias s=switch' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'complete -o default -F __start_kswitch s' >> ~/.bashrc

# optionally use `kswitch` as an alias for `switch`
# NOTE: do NOT alias `kswitch` to the raw binary — it must go through the shell wrapper
# so that KUBECONFIG is exported into your current shell session.
echo 'alias kswitch=switch' >> ~/.bashrc

Zsh

echo 'source <(kswitch init zsh)' >> ~/.zshrc

# optionally use alias `s` instead of `switch`
echo 'alias s=switch' >> ~/.zshrc

# optionally use `kswitch` as an alias for `switch`
# NOTE: do NOT alias `kswitch` to the raw binary — it must go through the shell wrapper
# so that KUBECONFIG is exported into your current shell session.
echo 'alias kswitch=switch' >> ~/.zshrc

# optionally use command completion
echo 'source <(switch completion zsh)' >> ~/.zshrc

Fish

Fish shell have a built-in switch function. Hence, differently from zsh shells, the kswitch function is called kswitch.

echo 'kswitch init fish | source' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

# optionally use alias `s` instead of `kswitch` (add to config.fish)
function s --wraps kswitch
        kswitch $argv;
end

Powershell

Powershell shell have a built-in switch function. Hence, differently from zsh shells, the kswitch function is called kswitch.

kswitch_windows_amd64.exe init powershell >> $PROFILE

# add this for the autocomplete to work
echo 'Register-ArgumentCompleter -CommandName ''kswitch_windows_amd64'' -ScriptBlock $__kswitchCompleterBlock' >> $PROFILE
echo 'Register-ArgumentCompleter -CommandName ''kswitch'' -ScriptBlock $__kswitchCompleterBlock' >> $PROFILE

# optionally use alias `s` instead of `kswitch` (add to $PROFILE)
echo "" >> $PROFILE
echo "Set-Alias -Name s -Value kswitch" >> $PROFILE
echo 'Register-ArgumentCompleter -CommandName ''s'' -ScriptBlock $__kswitchCompleterBlock' >> $PROFILE

# source your profile again
. $PROFILE

Check that it works

If you installed kswitch correctly, you can run the command switch (zsh, bash) or kswitch (fish, powershell) or alternatively the alias s from the terminal. In case the terminal can’t find the function, you might need to open another terminal or re-source your config file (.zshrc,.bashrc,…).

That should display the contexts the tool can find with the default configuration. If you get the error Error: you need to point kswitch to a kubeconfig file or do not see all desired kubeconfig contexts that you want to choose from, follow kubeconfig stores for the configuration.