KubeGUI - Kubernetes UI / admin desktop application

Official website - https://kubegui.net

Features

• Browse and manage Kubernetes resources with intuitive controls
• See changes as they happen with live updates
• Full support for Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) + example generator
• Work seamlessly across multiple clusters
• Powerful built-in resource editor with YAML validation and syntax highlighting
• No external dependencies — no kubectl required
• View Deployments, DaemonSets and single Pod logs with context aware highlighting
• Open a shell directly into your workloads (even to Nodes via admin daemonset)
• Automatic application updates, no manual installs
• Portforwarding support
• Network policy graph (native/cilium)
• Whoami/auth check view
• Whoami/auth check view
• Resource quota details visualisation
• RBAC roles/bindings graph/flow view
• Settings to change ui font/size
• Trivy cve scans (ondemand)

TODO:

• AI suggestions for issues/errors/warnings/etc
• Application auto update based on newer version from Github
• Helm respos+charts and releases (views)
• ArgoCD rollout/apps flow view

Scope:

1. Application code
2. Application releases
3. Website src
4. Issues/Bugs/Discussions hub

GUI / Backend

• Wails application serves as GUI and backend RPC server
• Backend logic organized into services with wails bindings
• Services can call each other and share internal logic
• Services expose methods to frontend via wails bindings
• Frontend calls backend methods via wails bridge
• Backend can also emit events to frontend for real-time updates

Wails bridge

internal/ - real backend implementations, not exposed to the frontend
services/ - backend implementations exposed to the frontend, with wails bindings ! services are thin bridge for real internal functions for the frontend

Frontend

• React + TypeScript + Vite frontend
• Mantine UI components for layout and styling
• React Router for client-side routing
• Tenstack query for data fetching and caching
• Zustand (https://zustand.docs.pmnd.rs/) Toolkit for state management

State management

• TanStack Virtual for Kubernetes resource lists and events
• Tenstack Query for server state (data fetched from backend) and Zustand for client state (UI state, selections, etc.)
• Zustand and TanStack Virtual (https://tanstack.com/virtual/latest) work great for displaying Kubernetes resource logs and events. The Go backend streams these events to the frontend. Zustand saves the resource list, and TanStack Virtual shows it on the screen without lagging.
• Global state managed with Zustand Toolkit
• Separate slices for different features (e.g., resources, navigation, namespaces)
• Each slice manages its own state and actions
• Components subscribe to relevant slices for data and actions
• Use React context if needed for cross-cutting concerns (e.g., theme, user settings)
• Persist current resource state in localStorage or similar for better UX Debounce High-Traffic Events: If you are watching a busy cluster, hundreds of events can arrive every second. Use a small buffer loop in Go or debouncing in Zustand so React does not re-render 100 times a second.
• State stores should have typed (table th) fields for each resource type, so the frontend only receives the data it needs to show in the UI. This reduces bandwidth and improves performance.

Best practices for UI

• Use Object UIDs for Keys: Do not use array indexes for the React key attribute. Use resource.metadata.uid. Kubernetes guarantees this ID is unique.
• Debounce High-Traffic Events: Use a small buffer loop in Go or debouncing in Zustand so React does not re-render 100 times a second.
• Auto-Scroll to Bottom: If this list is a live Event stream or Log viewer, you can use rowVirtualizer.scrollToIndex(resources.length - 1) inside a useEffect to snap the view to the latest items.

DEV

Rebuild all & run app in dev mode

wails3 task dev:all

Rebuild react frontend app only

wails3 task install:frontend:deps

Regenerate backend wails service bindings

wails3 task generate:bindings

Run dev frontend (vite+react)

wails3 task dev:frontend

Run dev wails app (backend)

wails3 task dev:backend

Pre-release checks

• All tests passed
• Windows and Mac prod versions built and tested
• All release notesand changelog updated
• Version bump - version=x.x.x wails3 task release\

Post-release checks

• Check and fix FOSSA license and security issues

Release builds:

version=2.0.0 wails3 task build:windows:prod
version=2.0.0 wails3 task build:mac:prod

Release for MAC (winlinx versions are released via GitHub actions):

version=2.0.0 wails3 task release:mac:prod

Release sign (win):

(bash)
cd ./bin
curl -skL https://github.com/gerbil/kubegui/releases/latest/download/kubegui-windows-x86_64.zip -O kubegui-windows-x86_64.zip
unzip kubegui-windows-x86_64
(cmd only)
cmd /C signtool sign /n "Jurijs Kobecs" /t http://time.certum.pl/ /fd sha256 /v kubegui.exe
-- pin manually
del kubegui-windows-x86_64.zip
zip -FSr kubegui-windows-x86_64.zip kubegui.exe
delete existing kubegui-windows-x86_64.zip in github release - via gh client
upload to github release - via gh client
del kubegui.exe
del kubegui-windows-x86_64.zip