Karpenter commands

Tails the logs of the Karpenter controller pod.

kubectl logs -f -n kube-system -l app.kubernetes.io/name=karpenter

Current install guides use kube-system; older installs used a karpenter namespace.

logs, debugging

Shows all NodeClaims provisioned by Karpenter.

kubectl get nodeclaims

nodes, claims

Filters Karpenter logs specifically for scale-down and disruption events.

kubectl logs -n kube-system -l app.kubernetes.io/name=karpenter | grep -i disrupt

scaling, disruption, logs

Shows all Karpenter NodePool configurations.

kubectl get nodepools

nodepool, config

Shows detailed info about a specific NodeClaim including instance type.

kubectl describe nodeclaim <nodeclaim-name>

describe, instance

Shows all EC2NodeClass resources used by Karpenter for AWS configuration.

kubectl get ec2nodeclasses

aws, nodeclass, config

Shows each NodePool's CPU limit next to the CPU it has provisioned.

kubectl get nodepools -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,CPU_LIMIT:.spec.limits.cpu,CPU_USED:.status.resources.cpu

nodepools, limits, capacity

Streams NodeClaim changes as Karpenter provisions and consolidates nodes.

kubectl get nodeclaims -w

nodeclaims, watch, consolidation

Shows a pod's scheduling events, where Karpenter reports why no NodePool fits it.

kubectl get events -n <namespace> --field-selector involvedObject.name=<pod-name> --sort-by=.lastTimestamp

pending, scheduling, events

Stops Karpenter from consolidating, expiring or replacing the node this pod runs on.

kubectl annotate pod <pod-name> -n <namespace> karpenter.sh/do-not-disrupt=true

Remove it with the same command and a trailing minus: karpenter.sh/do-not-disrupt-

disruption, annotation

Prints the consolidation policy and disruption budgets of a NodePool.

kubectl get nodepool <nodepool-name> -o jsonpath='{.spec.disruption}'

disruption, budgets, nodepools