kubectl describe unknown shorthand flag -o

Question

I think -o is supposed be an universal option for kubectl. But, somehow I get the following error when I run the following kubectl command.

Can you please tell me why? Thank you.

mamun$ kubectl describe secret -n development serviceaccount-foo -o yaml
Error: unknown shorthand flag: 'o' in -o
See 'kubectl describe --help' for usage.

user_1423507 · Answer

-o | --output is not a universal flag, it is not included in the default kubectl flags (1.18) and kubectl describe does not support the --output (or shorthand -o) flag.

user_6169445 · Answer

try this:

kubectl describe secret -n development serviceaccount-foo -- -o yaml

kubectl describe unknown shorthand flag -o

2 Answers