Introduction

The kubectl completion script for Bash can be generated with the command kubectl completion bash. Sourcing the completion script in your shell enables kubectl autocompletion.

Step-by-step Method

Part 1: Install bash-completion

• Step 1: Please check the following command to see that the Linux package is installed.

  $ type _init_completion
  

• Step 2: If you did not install the bash-completion, you can install bash-completion by:

  $ sudo apt-get install bash-completion
  

• Step 3: The above commands create /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion, which is the main script of bash-completion. Depending on your package manager, you have to manually source this file in your ~/.bashrc file.

  $ source /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
  

• Step 4: Reload your shell and check the package is successfully installed. If you cannot get the content, then please check step 3 is successfully configured.

  type _init_completion
  

Part 2: Enable kubectl autocompletion

• You now need to ensure that the kubectl completion script gets sourced in all your shell sessions.

  Note: bash-completion sources all completion scripts in /etc/bash_completion.d.

  echo 'source <(kubectl completion bash)' >>~/.bashrc
  

• If you have an alias for kubectl, you can extend shell completion to work with that alias:

  echo 'alias k=kubectl' >>~/.bashrc
  echo 'complete -F __start_kubectl k' >>~/.bashrc
  

• After reloading your shell, kubectl autocompletion should be working.

Reference

• Official Document - bash auto-completion on Linux:

  bash auto-completion on Linux

• Github - bash-completion:

  GitHub - scop/bash-completion: Programmable completion functions for bash