'Why doesn't kubectl bash completion work on macOS/OS X?

I followed the instructions for installing Bash completion as given by kubectl completion -h:

  1. I installed bash-completion via Homebrew
  2. In my ~/.bashrc, I first source bash-completion then output from the completion kubectl subcommand:
    • source $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion
    • source <(kubectl completion bash)

With these in place, I start up a new shell but the completion doesn't work. How do I get it working?

bashkuberneteshomebrewbash-completionkubectl


Solution 1:[1]

Once bash-completion is installed by Homebrew, it appears that its completions need to reside in $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d. There you'll find a lot of other completions that come bundled. To add the completion for kubectl:

$ kubectl completion bash > $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d/kubectl

That did the trick for me.

Solution 2:[2]

I the answer form Ahmet B, the fix says to add the following to your .bashrc file:

export BASH_COMPLETION_COMPAT_DIR="/usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d"
[[ -r "/usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh" ]] && . "/usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh"

However, the install of completions 2:

brew install bash-completion@2

finishes with a message to add the export line if you would LIKE TO USE V1 completions. Removing that export enabled kubectl completion for me.

Solution 3:[3]

See the "On macOS, using bash" section of kubectl documentation: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl/#on-macos-using-bash I recently contributed those so they should be up to date. If not, please send a pull request to fix it.

Also: https://blog.fabric8.io/enable-bash-completion-for-kubernetes-with-kubectl-506bc89fe79e

Solution 4:[4]

  1. After brew install bash-completion, to actually enable bash completions, you need to: 
    source /usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
    Add that line to you bashrc.
  2. Then you can: 
    source <(kubectl completion bash)

Solution 5:[5]

The above answers didn't work for me, but I found out this solution:

source /dev/stdin <<<"$(kubectl completion bash)"

Solution 6:[6]

Here is an alternative approach:

Install bash and bash-completion

brew install bash bash-completion

Set Terminal to use bash

Preferences > General > Shell open with: Command (complete path):

/opt/homebrew/bin/bash

Check the location bash-completion has been installed to

brew info bash-completion

Bash completion has been installed to: /opt/homebrew/etc/bash_completion.d

Edit ~/.bashrc

alias k="kubectl"
complete -F __start_kubectl k
source /opt/homebrew/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
source <(kubectl completion bash)

Reload Terminal and verify that the completion works

~$ k <TAB>

alpha auth cordon diff get patch run version annotate autoscale cp ...

Environment

  • macOS Monterey 12.2.1
  • Homebrew 3.3.15
  • GNU bash, version 5.1.16(1)-release (aarch64-apple-darwin21.1.0)
  • bash-completion: stable 1.3 (bottled)
  • kubectl v1.23.3

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Dmitry Minkovsky
Solution 2 slfan
Solution 3 ahmet alp balkan
Solution 4 Philippe Fanaro
Solution 5 Alex Weitz
Solution 6

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