Lumen

Lumen is an open source desktop workbench for Kubernetes clusters. It gives operators and developers a fast local UI for cluster discovery, workload triage, logs, events, YAML inspection, port forwarding, Helm release operations, and pod shell sessions.

Lumen exists for teams and individuals who want a capable Kubernetes dashboard without sending cluster access through a hosted SaaS control plane.

Scope

Lumen is intentionally local-first:

• Reads cluster access from the user's kubeconfig.
• Talks directly to Kubernetes APIs from the Tauri app.
• Does not require a hosted backend, gateway, or SaaS account.
• Keeps cluster state and UI preferences on the user's machine.

Features

• Multi-context fleet view with health probes and soft-disconnect.
• Namespace-aware workload explorer for core Kubernetes resources and long-tail resource families.
• Resource detail drawer with events, YAML, labels, owner references, pod metrics, container state, and kind-specific insights.
• Rich detail views for RBAC, storage, services, ingress, NetworkPolicy, HPA, PDB, ResourceQuota, and LimitRange resources.
• Logs with virtualized rendering, search, pause/resume, bounded buffers, and multi-workload streams.
• Pod shell sessions via Kubernetes attach, with lazy-loaded terminal code.
• Port forwarding for Pods and Services.
• Helm release list, details, history, install, upgrade, rollback, and uninstall flows.
• CRD discovery and custom resource YAML inspection.
• DevSec scan for workload security context, mutable images, missing probes/limits, NetworkPolicy coverage, risky services, and RBAC risks.
• RBAC-aware mutating actions for YAML apply and generic resource delete.
• Secret YAML redaction by default.

See docs/FEATURES.md for a fuller feature overview.

Install

Download the latest release from GitHub Releases.

Lumen ships macOS, Windows, and Linux preview builds. See docs/INSTALL.md for platform-specific install and download verification steps.

Security Model

• No hosted backend: the app talks to the Kubernetes API directly from the local desktop process.
• Uses the user's kubeconfig and current Kubernetes RBAC permissions.
• Write operations are narrow, explicit, and guarded with RBAC checks where supported.
• Secret resource YAML redacts data, stringData, and binaryData before rendering.
• See docs/security/SECURITY_MODEL.md and SECURITY.md.

Tech Stack

• React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS.
• Tauri 2 with Rust command handlers.
• kube-rs for Kubernetes API access and watches.
• TanStack Query for frontend data fetching and cache invalidation.
• TanStack Virtual for high-volume log and table rendering.
• xterm.js for pod attach sessions.
• Vitest and Rust tests for core behavior.

Development

npm install
npm run dev

Run the desktop shell:

npm run tauri dev

Create a local kind fixture cluster:

./scripts/kind-fixture.sh

Then select context kind-lumen-dev and namespace lumen-demo. See docs/development/local-cluster.md.

Run checks:

npm run lint
npm run test
npm run build
npm run perf:bundle
cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml
cargo fmt --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml -- --check
cargo clippy --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml --all-targets -- -D warnings

See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines and SECURITY.md for vulnerability reporting.

Release maintainers should use docs/release/RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md and docs/release/NOTARIZATION.md.

Performance

The current architecture is built for large-cluster use: route-level code splitting, React Query cache reuse, virtualized logs, coalesced log stream updates, Rust-side watch streams, and local Tauri commands avoid a backend hop.

CI enforces bundle budgets for the main app chunk, terminal chunk, and workloads route with npm run perf:bundle.

License

Apache-2.0