Kubernetes Context Switching — Meriadoc Examples

Switch kubectl context and namespace in one command, with a hard confirmation gate before touching prod.

kubectl config use-context runs as an init_cmd before you’re handed the prompt, so you’re never one kubectl apply away from hitting the wrong cluster because you forgot to switch. The dev shell is unannotated and opens freely; the prod shell requires explicit approval and prints a banner — the same pattern as the AWS account-switching example, applied to cluster access instead of cloud credentials.

version: v1

shells:
  k8s-dev:
    description: "Kubernetes shell for the development cluster"
    agent:
      risk_level: low
    env:
      K8S_CONTEXT:
        type: string
        default: "dev-cluster"
      K8S_NAMESPACE:
        type: string
        default: "default"
    init_cmds:
      - kubectl config use-context $K8S_CONTEXT
      - kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=$K8S_NAMESPACE
      - kubectl cluster-info

  k8s-prod:
    description: "Kubernetes shell for the production cluster"
    agent:
      risk_level: high
      requires_approval: true
      confirmation: "You are about to access the PRODUCTION Kubernetes cluster. Continue?"
    env:
      K8S_CONTEXT:
        type: string
        default: "prod-cluster"
      K8S_NAMESPACE:
        type: string
        default: "production"
    init_cmds:
      - kubectl config use-context $K8S_CONTEXT
      - kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=$K8S_NAMESPACE
      - echo "PRODUCTION KUBERNETES CLUSTER — use with caution"
      - kubectl cluster-info

Run it:

meriadoc shell k8s-dev