Bifrost gives you a native macOS interface for Kubernetes — a lightweight alternative to Lens, and to memorising kubectl commands. Point it at a cluster with your existing kubeconfig and you get pods, deployments, logs, exec, port-forwarding and more, in one window.
What you can do
- Workloads — pods and deployments, with health at a glance.
- Networking & config — services, ConfigMaps, and secrets you can reveal and copy (decoded from base64).
- Cluster — nodes and events.
- Live actions — view logs, exec into a container, port-forward a pod to your Mac, scale, restart, and roll back a deployment (with its revision history).
- Raw YAML — inspect and edit the manifest of any resource, or apply a manifest.
- Contexts & namespaces — switch context and filter by namespace (or view all namespaces) from the toolbar.
1. Import your kubeconfig
Create a new connection and choose Kubernetes. Import the kubeconfig file you already use with kubectl (or paste it). Bifrost reads the cluster endpoint, credentials and certificate authority from it — the same file, no extra setup.
If the cluster uses a self-signed certificate that isn’t in the kubeconfig’s CA, you can enable Skip TLS verification for that connection (only on a trusted network).
2. Browse your cluster
Open the connection to land on the workloads view. Pick a namespace (or All namespaces) and switch context from the toolbar if your kubeconfig has several. Select any resource to see its details and YAML.
3. Logs, exec and port-forward
- Logs — open a pod’s logs to follow output live.
- Exec — drop into a shell inside a container to debug it.
- Port-forward — forward a pod or service port to
127.0.0.1on your Mac, so you can reach an internal database or dashboard in your browser. Bifrost binds locally only.
4. Scale, restart and roll back
From a deployment you can scale replicas, trigger a restart, or roll back to an earlier revision — the revision history is right there, so you can undo a bad deploy in a couple of clicks.
Free vs Pro
Viewing your Kubernetes resources is free. Performing actions on them — exec, port-forward, scale, restart, rollback, editing YAML — is a Bifrost Pro feature. Everything is unlocked during the 14-day free trial.
Troubleshooting
“Unable to connect to the server.”
The cluster endpoint in your kubeconfig isn’t reachable from your Mac (VPN down, wrong context, or a private API server). Confirm the same kubeconfig works with kubectl get nodes.
Certificate error. The API server’s certificate isn’t trusted. Use a kubeconfig that embeds the correct CA, or enable Skip TLS verification for that connection on a trusted network.
The connection appears on another Mac but has no kubeconfig. The kubeconfig lives in your Keychain. Turn on Sync SSH & Kubernetes keys on both Macs to carry it across, or import the kubeconfig again — see iCloud sync.
Still stuck? Get in touch — include the exact error text Bifrost shows.