Telescope

Desktop Kubernetes IDE with native Azure AKS integration.

Telescope is a desktop Kubernetes IDE built with Rust and Tauri v2 that gives platform engineers and cluster operators a single pane of glass for Kubernetes resources and Azure AKS management. It is a native desktop application -- not a web service or an Electron wrapper -- designed for low memory overhead and fast startup on Windows and macOS.

Key Features

Kubernetes

Capability	Details
Resource browsing	28+ watched resource types with real-time updates
Pod operations	Streaming logs, interactive exec, port-forward
Helm management	Release listing, history, and lifecycle actions
CRD browser	Discover and inspect custom resource definitions
Metrics	Node and pod resource utilization
Resource actions	Scale, restart, cordon/uncordon, drain
Namespace scoping	Multi-namespace and all-namespace views

Azure AKS

Capability	Details
ARM management	Node pool CRUD, cluster lifecycle, upgrade orchestration
Maintenance windows	Visibility into planned maintenance configuration
Multi-cloud	Commercial, Government, Secret, and Top Secret environments
Identity resolution	Entra ID principal display for RBAC bindings

AI Insights

Capability	Details
Cluster analysis	BYOK Azure OpenAI integration for resource diagnostics

Security

Capability	Details
Binary pinning	Trusted binary verification for bundled tools
Cache redaction	Sensitive fields stripped from local resource cache
Scoped identity	Least-privilege credential handling per connection
Exec audit	Redacted audit logging for exec and port-forward sessions

Developer Experience

Capability	Details
Container-first validation	Dev container with Rust, Node.js, and Playwright pre-installed
E2E coverage	39 Playwright end-to-end tests across core workflows
CI pipeline	Automated Rust, frontend, and desktop build checks

Quick Start

Download a Release

Prebuilt installers are available from GitHub Releases. Each release includes SHA256 checksums for verification.

Platform	Recommended	Alternatives
Windows	.msi installer	.exe setup, portable .exe
macOS	.dmg installer	Portable binary

Build and Test from Source

git clone https://github.com/adamdost-0/Telescope.git
cd Telescope
./scripts/dev-test.sh

The container workflow is the recommended path. It runs CI-equivalent Rust, frontend, and Playwright checks inside a pre-configured dev container. For an interactive shell instead:

./scripts/dev-test.sh shell

To build the native desktop shell or produce installers on your host OS:

./scripts/bootstrap-dev.sh
./scripts/pnpm.sh -C apps/desktop dev
./scripts/pnpm.sh -C apps/desktop bundle

See Development for the full container-first workflow and Testing for validation commands.

Connect to a Cluster

1. Launch Telescope.
2. Kubeconfig contexts appear automatically.
3. Select a context -- resources load in real time.
4. Navigate the sidebar: Workloads, Network, Config, Storage, RBAC, Nodes, Events, Helm, CRDs, Azure.

Architecture

Telescope is a Cargo + pnpm monorepo with a strict layering model.

apps/desktop (Tauri v2 shell)
  |-- apps/web (SvelteKit frontend, packaged into desktop)
  |-- crates/engine (Kubernetes client, watchers, actions, Helm, logs, exec)
  |-- crates/azure (Azure ARM client, AKS management-plane operations)
  |-- crates/core (shared domain types, state machine, SQLite resource store)

• crates/core -- Shared domain types, connection state machine, and SQLite-backed resource persistence.
• crates/engine -- Kubernetes client with 28+ resource watchers, pod log/exec/port-forward support, Helm integration, metrics, CRDs, and audit.
• crates/azure -- Azure ARM client for AKS cluster and node pool management across Commercial, Government, Secret, and Top Secret clouds.
• apps/web -- SvelteKit 5 frontend consumed by the desktop shell via Tauri IPC. Not a standalone web application.
• apps/desktop -- Tauri v2 packaging layer with 66+ registered IPC commands.

Dependency direction: desktop -> engine -> core, desktop -> azure -> core.

For the full system design, see Architecture.

Documentation

Document	Description
Features	Full feature matrix
Architecture	System design, crate layering, data flow
AKS Quick Start	Connect to AKS in under 5 minutes
Development	Container-first setup, host bootstrap, project structure
Testing	Containerized validation, test pyramid, CI policy
Security	Threat model, secret handling, audit logging
Deployment	Build, bundle, and distribute
Roadmap	Post-v1.0.0 priorities
Changelog	Release history

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on code style, commit conventions, and the review process.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.