Contexts and namespaces

The two controls in the top bar decide what every screen shows.

Switching context

A context switch is a change of cluster, and the app treats it as one:

• Every cluster query is reset, not merely refetched. Screens go back to loading rather than showing the previous cluster’s rows while writes already reach the new one.
• A detail page closes back to its list, because the object it names belongs to the cluster you are leaving.
• Every stream ends — port forwards, shells, log follows, drains — with an error naming the reason. They all share one live connection, so none of them can outlive it.
• The informers stop, and the metrics sampler resets, so charts start again from now.
• The startup checks re-run, so any notice in the top bar describes the context you are on.

None of this touches your kubeconfig.

Switching namespace

Selecting a namespace narrows every namespaced screen to it. Selecting All namespaces widens them.

The namespace selector lists names only. It never counts pods, because on a busy cluster one such count is megabytes on every refresh.

Internally, “All namespaces” is the absence of a namespace — the label is the interface’s, never a value handed to a cluster call. It is answered from the app’s own memory rather than the cluster, so it is known immediately and stays known while the cluster is down.

All namespaces and timeouts

A namespaced list under All namespaces is asking for a fraction of the cluster multiplied by the number of namespaces. When one times out, the app says so and points at the namespace selector. Cluster-scoped lists never give that advice, since narrowing does not apply to them.

Namespaces have a screen of their own

A namespace does nothing by itself, so its detail page is a roll-up: what lives in it, with each count linking to that kind’s list; the quotas and limit ranges it carries; and the usage of its pods against what they requested.

A namespace roll-up. Each count links to that kind’s list.

Namespaces can be created and deleted through the ordinary write path, and deleting one asks you to type its name — it takes every object inside it with it.