Architecture

Architecture#

Source layout#

All of the plugin’s logic lives under src/:

File

Responsibility

api.ts

Defines KubeExecProfileOptions/KubeExecProfile and KubeExecProfileProvider, which registers the “Kubernetes Exec” profile type with Tabby.

kubeConfigLoader.ts

Plain Node helpers with no Angular/Tabby dependency: kubeconfig parsing, context listing, a cached CoreV1Api client per kubeconfig path + context, namespace/pod listing, and the pod-phase pre-check used before connecting.

kubeExec.session.ts

KubeExecSession, implementing Tabby’s BaseSession on top of the Kubernetes exec WebSocket.

index.ts

The plugin’s Angular NgModule entry point.

components/kubeExecProfileSettings.component.ts

The profile settings form: the cascading context/namespace/pod/ container pickers.

components/kubeExecTab.component.ts

The terminal tab component, extending Tabby’s ConnectableTerminalTabComponent.

Request flow#

kubeExecProfileProvider (api.ts)  -->  registers the profile type
     |
     v
kubeConfigLoader.ts        -->  load kubeconfig, resolve credentials,
     |                          check the target pod's phase
     v
kubeExec.session.ts          -->  open the pods/exec WebSocket,
     |                            drive stdin/stdout/resize over it
     v
components/kubeExecTab.component.ts  -->  interactive shell rendered in the tab

No step in this chain shells out to kubectl; credential resolution, the exec sub-protocol, and I/O framing are all handled by @kubernetes/client-node and driven directly from TypeScript.

A note on Angular’s change detection#

All Kubernetes API calls run directly in Tabby’s renderer process. Responses to them (and to any exec-based auth subprocess) arrive via plain Node.js http/child_process events, which zone.js’s browser bundle does not patch — so without help, the settings dialog’s namespace/pod pickers would correctly fetch data but not visibly update until some unrelated UI event happened to trigger a redraw. kubeExecProfileSettings.component.ts works around this by explicitly re-entering Angular’s zone (NgZone.run(...)) once each API call resolves.

Bundled dependencies#

The plugin bundles @kubernetes/client-node (kubernetes-client/javascript), pinned to an exact version (not a ^ range) since its WebSocket/exec internals are not part of its stable public API surface. The package is ESM-only, so it is always loaded via a dynamic import() rather than a static import, avoiding an ERR_REQUIRE_ESM failure in this CommonJS-targeted plugin bundle.

Beyond this one library, the plugin has no runtime dependencies other than what Tabby itself provides (Angular, Tabby’s core APIs, etc.).