Global flags

These flags are accepted by every kix command and may appear before or after the subcommand. A command that has no use for a flag ignores it, and its --help does not list it. kix --help lists them all.

This page is hand-maintained. Check GlobalArgs and SCOPED_GLOBALS in cli/kix-cli/src/cli.rs, cli/kix-cli/src/main.rs and cli/kix-cli/src/output.rs when in doubt.

Flags

Flag	Default	Meaning
-o, --output <FORMAT>	Varies by command	text, json, yaml, or markdown. See Output formats for which commands honour which values.
-v, --verbose	Off	Log more to stderr. Repeat for more: -v logs Kix at info level, -vv at debug, -vvv everything at debug. Without it, warnings are logged, except those the Kubernetes client writes for an error response it then returns to Kix.
-q, --quiet	Off	Suppress progress and informational output, and log errors only. Results still print.
--no-color	Off	Disable coloured result output. Deploy and gc progress lines currently still use terminal clear-line control sequences.
--context <CONTEXT>	Current kubeconfig context	Kubeconfig context for every command that talks to a cluster. logs and pf pass it to kubectl.
--flake <FLAKE>	.	Flake to evaluate clusters from. A value without : is a local path, resolved against the working directory; anything else, such as github:org/repo, is passed to Nix as a flake reference. Commands that use the eval cache currently fail on a remote reference.
--no-cache	Off	Skip the Kix eval cache and evaluate from Nix every time. See Eval cache behavior.
--override-input <INPUT> <URL>	None	Override a flake input’s URL for every nix command Kix runs, like nix --override-input. Repeatable, two values each time.
-h, --help		Print help. -h prints a summary, --help the long form.
-V, --version		Print the version.

Which commands read which flag

-v, -q and --no-color apply to every command. The other flags apply only where the table shows them; elsewhere they are accepted and have no effect.

Command	-o	--context	--flake	--no-cache	--override-input
build, check, graph, inspect, images, list	yes		yes	yes	yes
status	yes	yes	flat view only	flat view only	flat view only
diff	yes	yes	yes		yes
plan	yes	yes	yes		yes
deploy, gc, migrate domain, logs, pf		yes	yes		yes
export			yes		yes
rollback, drift	yes	yes
health, snapshot save		yes
compliance sbom	yes		yes		yes
compliance attest	yes	yes	yes		yes
compliance audit			yes	yes	yes
pin	yes		yes
completions

--no-cache applies only to commands that read the eval cache. kix pin uses --flake only as a place to look for pins.json. -o on rollback applies only with --list, and on deploy only with --dry-run.

Environment variables

Variable	Effect
NO_COLOR	Any value disables colour, as --no-color does. Colour is also off when TERM=dumb or stdout is not a terminal. Deploy and gc have the progress-line exception noted above.
KIX_LOG	A tracing filter, such as kix=debug or debug, that replaces the level chosen by -v and -q.
KIX_NO_INTERACTIVE	Any value makes Kix treat the terminal as non-interactive, so commands that ask for confirmation refuse to prompt and need --yes. Stdin that is not a terminal has the same effect.

The variables that tune how Kix talks to the Kubernetes API are listed in API server retries and request limits. Registry credentials for kix pin are listed on kix pin.

Examples

❱ kix --flake ../infra list clusters

❱ kix deploy demo --context kind-demo -v

❱ kix build demo --override-input kixpkgs git+file:///home/me/src/kixpkgs

Use it in a task

See Install and run the Kix CLI for setting up the CLI against a flake.