PodMon for Red Hat® OpenShift®

Explore workloads, follow pod logs, and perform common operations on Red Hat® OpenShift® clusters without leaving Visual Studio Code.

PodMon is an independent extension powered by the local oc CLI, which uses your existing kubeconfig. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Red Hat.

Features

• Browser-based OpenShift login and context switching
• Project filtering, resource visibility controls, resource-wide search, current-project selection, and configurable auto-refresh
• Cluster-specific favorite projects for quick access
• Large project lists stay collapsed until you choose to open them
• Shared, cached cluster reads with bounded oc concurrency
• A compact, theme-native resource tree that hides empty groups
• Optional display density for long enterprise resource names, with complete details retained in tooltips
• A dedicated Pods group plus Deployments and StatefulSets with readiness and nested pod status
• Pod restart counts, details, events, and a rich multi-container log viewer
• A bottom-panel log workspace with reusable tabs for up to 15 pods
• Live log pause and resume, search, level filters, timestamp and line-number controls, wrapping, raw snapshots, and downloads
• Services with ports and Cluster IPs
• Routes with admission status, TLS details, open, and copy URL actions
• ConfigMaps with on-demand key browsing, read-only editor snapshots, and explicit downloads
• Confirmed deployment and StatefulSet restart and scaling
• Hover shortcuts to scale replicas up or down and restart workloads
• Action-specific confirmations and staged refreshes after workload changes

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code 1.90 or newer
• OpenShift CLI (oc) installed locally
• Access to an OpenShift cluster

If oc is missing, select the warning in PodMon for download instructions, executable selection, and a fresh check. PodMon does not download or install executables automatically.

Getting started

1. Select the PodMon icon in the Activity Bar.
2. Choose Login and enter the cluster API URL.
3. Complete authentication in your browser.
4. Expand a project to browse workloads and networking.

Existing oc sessions and kubeconfig contexts are detected automatically.

PodMon runs where the VS Code extension host runs. Remote development therefore requires oc and kubeconfig access in the remote extension-host environment.

Explorer

Project
├── Pods
├── Deployments
├── StatefulSets
├── Services
├── Routes
└── ConfigMaps

Use the Explorer toolbar to search visible resources by name or choose which resource types appear. Resource search works across projects and keeps the required parent rows visible.

When a project opens, Pods are expanded first while the other resource sections remain collapsed. Distinct theme-aware section colors make Pods, workloads, networking, and ConfigMaps easier to scan.

For clusters with long names, open Filters, choose Display Density, and select Compact. Healthy pod rows and networking resources give their names more room, while warnings, restart counts, and full hover details remain available. Detailed mode remains the default.

Select a pod to open the PodMon Logs panel with its last 100 lines and live updates. Other pods open as tabs in the same panel, and selecting an already-open pod reuses its tab. Scroll up to inspect history without forced auto-scrolling, search or filter the rolling buffer, pause the stream, download the complete retained log buffer, or open that buffer in the editor. Closing a pod tab stops its oc logs process.

Use the pod's hover action menu for details and events. The advanced Open with oc in Terminal fallback remains available from the log viewer Options menu.

Expand a ConfigMap to browse its keys. Select a text key to open a read-only snapshot in the editor, use its save action to write that key to a chosen file, or download all keys from the ConfigMap menu. Binary keys are never rendered as text and can only be saved. ConfigMap values are requested only when you expand or open that specific ConfigMap.

The Log Viewer keeps at most 50,000 lines or 10 MB in memory and stops its oc logs process when the tab closes. PodMon also reuses live log terminals restored by VS Code. If a restored terminal session has exited, opening the same log replaces it with a fresh connection.

Deployment actions

Right-click a deployment to restart it or change its replica count. Both actions show a confirmation dialog before changing the cluster.

Settings

Auto-refresh runs only while the Explorer is visible. Refresh requests are coalesced while data is loading, and automatic command concurrency is bounded. Its toolbar icon changes while active and can be clicked to disable it. Manual refresh is always available.

Security and privacy

• Cluster connections and credentials remain managed by oc and kubeconfig. PodMon does not directly open or parse kubeconfig files.
• The extension does not request, collect, or store passwords or access tokens.
• oc arguments are passed directly to the executable without shell interpolation.
• PodMon has no telemetry or PodMon-managed server, and it does not upload cluster information, ConfigMaps, or logs.
• PodMon 2.2.0 does not list or request Secret resources.
• Log buffers, ConfigMap snapshots, favorites, and display preferences remain local to the VS Code extension-host environment. Files are written only after an explicit save or download action.
• Destructive workload actions require explicit confirmation.

Logs and ConfigMaps can contain sensitive information supplied by the connected cluster. Handle locally displayed or downloaded content according to your organization's policies. The packaged PRIVACY.md and SECURITY.md files provide additional details.

License

MIT License. Copyright 2026 Hariharan Ganesan.

Trademarks

PodMon has no affiliation with Red Hat, LLC. The Red Hat and OpenShift trademarks are used for identification purposes only and are not intended to indicate affiliation with or approval by Red Hat. Red Hat and OpenShift are trademarks of Red Hat, LLC, registered in the United States and other countries.