When working with Kubernetes via the command line, it's common to forget the exact structure of resources or their API versions. Fortunately, Kubernetes provides powerful CLI tools to explore resources and their fields — without ever needing to leave the terminal.

📘 Exploring Kubernetes Resources with kubectl api-resources

To list all available resources in your cluster, use:

kubectl api-resources

This command is especially helpful when:

• You can’t find a resource in the official documentation.
• You forget a resource’s full name or its short name (e.g., po for pods).
• You’re unsure about the correct API version (e.g., v1 or V1?).
• You want to know the case-sensitive spelling used in YAML manifests.

This output provides key details such as:

• Resource names
• Short names
• API groups/versions
• Whether the resource is namespaced

🧠 Understanding Resource Fields with kubectl explain

Once you've identified a resource, use the kubectl explain command to inspect its structure:

kubectl explain pods

This displays the top-level fields for the pods resource, such as: