What is krew?

Krew is a package manager for kubectl plugins. kubectl is the command-line tool used to interact with Kubernetes clusters, which are systems for running and managing containerized applications at scale. Plugins extend kubectl with extra commands beyond what it ships with by default, and Krew is the tool that finds, installs, and manages those plugins. Without Krew, installing a kubectl plugin typically means downloading a binary, placing it in the right location on your system, and keeping track of updates yourself. Krew handles all of that in a consistent way, similar to how Homebrew works for macOS software or apt works for Debian Linux packages. Over 200 plugins are available through Krew's plugin index. For people who build kubectl plugins, Krew also provides a way to package and distribute a plugin across multiple operating systems and CPU architectures, and makes the plugin discoverable to the broader kubectl user community. The README is brief and points to the project's documentation site for installation steps, a quickstart guide, and a full user guide. There are also contributor-facing documents in the repository covering the plugin lifecycle and architectural decisions made during early development, though some of those documents are noted as potentially out of date. Krew is a Kubernetes SIG (Special Interest Group) project, maintained under the kubernetes-sigs GitHub organization. Community support happens on Kubernetes Slack channels and a mailing list.