Error: kubectl not found

System Information:

• MacOS: 10.15.7
• VSCode: 1.60.0
• Kubernetes Extension: v1.3.3

Recently I started having an issue where the extension cannot find kubectl on VSCode launch. I get an error saying

Kubectl command failed: kubectl not found

In my settings, I have tried setting both vscode-kubernetes.kubectl-path as well as vscode-kubernetes.kubectl-path.mac to a specific path and it is giving the same error. E.g.

"vscode-kubernetes.kubectl-path": "/usr/local/bin/kubectl"

And /usr/local/bin/kubectl is the same path I get when I run which kubectl

I am using settings sync but this particular setting is ignored so nothing should be stepping on top of it.

I have also not been able to find any specific logs for this extension loading but not sure if I am looking in the correct place or not.

In addition, I have installed kubectl to the local default directory used by the extension at ~/.vs-kubernetes/tools as well but that has not fixed the issue.

[SMFloris]

We are having the same issue when using microk8s as well.

For example, in theory it would be enough to point it to the kubectl path:

"vscode-kubernetes.kubectl-path": "/var/lib/snapd/snap/bin/microk8s.kubectl",

But this fails since it expects the binary itself to be named kubectl and does not accept anything else which defeats the purpose of the path variable.

[onelaview]

• OS: macOS 12.6 / ARM
• kubectl installed via Homebrew at /opt/homebrew/bin/kubectl and is on system PATH.
• Extension version v1.3.10

Found similar issue. I’ve got this error notification when opening kubeconfig file (i.e. /Users/foo/.kube/config) in my vscode.

In my case, I don’t have vs-kubernetes.kubectl-path or vscode-kubernetes.kubectl-path settings whatsoever. Only related extension setting is

"vs-kubernetes": {
    "vscode-kubernetes.minikube-path.mac": "/Users/foo/.vs-kubernetes/tools/minikube/darwin-amd64/minikube"
},

I solved this by deleting ~/.vs-kubernetes folder, uninstall the extension and then re-install it. Now the error notification doesn’t popup anymore.