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Lens 2026.10.261408-latest - Release#

The new Stable release of Lens Desktop is here.

To ensure a smooth transition and minimize disruption we'll start by rolling out the update to a small portion of our users, then incrementally increasing this number until all users have access to the update. If you have not received the update and wish to try it out, you can download this version manually at our website .

Key Features#

Split screen#

Work with tabs side by side. Split the view with the button at the end of the tab strip or Cmd/Ctrl+\, drag a tab to the edge of the view, or middle-click a resource in the navigator to open it beside what you are looking at. Drag a terminal, logs or any other tab out of the dock to keep it next to the list it is about, still running. Each side keeps its own tabs, and the dock and status bar follow the side you are working in.

Tabs in windows#

Open any tab in a window of its own. Drag a tab out of the window, or choose Open in new window from the tab's menu, from a navigator item or from a link to a list, such as a count on the workload overview. The window has its own back and forward, and Demote as Tab puts the tab back among the others. Cascade Windows in the Window menu lays every window out over the screen you are working on.

Ask AI can open a list of resources beside what you are looking at or in a window of its own, and arrange your tabs for you.

Split screen and tabs in windows are premium features of Lens Plus, Pro and Enterprise.

More for extensions#

  • Extensions running kubectl exec through Lens reach the right cluster, and an extension can stop a kubectl command that is still running
  • An extension can bring its tab in a cluster's dock back to the front when it is already open
  • Extensions published under an npm scope, such as @acme/k9s, keep their settings and other state across restarts
  • Extension tables can give a column a starting, minimum or fixed width. Clicking a row, or pressing Enter on it, does what the extension decides, and a column header can sort the table by its column
  • An extension can take you to a cluster's overview, connecting the cluster first, as clicking it in the navigator does
  • An extension can show a resource's details, or details of its own items, beside the tab you are in
  • An extension can add a section to the details of only some resources, such as the pods a custom resource owns
  • A column an extension adds to a list of Lens, such as Nodes, can be sorted by clicking its header
  • Tables of an extension can have a menu on every row, and an extension can show the menu of a resource with Lens's own actions in it
  • An extension can open a shell into a pod, or the editor for a resource, in the cluster's dock
  • Every window of Lens runs every extension, so an extension's tabs work in a window of their own too. An extension can also list and arrange the windows of Lens
  • When Lens refuses an extension's dependency range, it names every refused range and the range to declare instead. A new extension's build checks this before it runs, and npx lens-extension-dependencies-check --fix rewrites the ranges
  • Publishing an extension, from Lens or with npm publish in an extension made from the current scaffold, first checks that Lens can install and load it, and says what to fix when it cannot. A prerelease no longer becomes the version users install by default
  • The AI tool of an older extension can bring it up to today's scaffold, raise its dependency ranges to what Lens serves and move it off deprecated Lens APIs. It offers to before publishing
  • Dialogs an extension builds from Lens's modal components look like Lens's own dialogs, and can show a close button

Enhancements#

  • A Helm release that no configured repository publishes, such as one installed from a local chart or from a repository since removed, can now be upgraded in Lens. Give the upgrade a chart folder or a packaged .tgz, and Lens remembers it for the release's next upgrade
  • AWS organizations whose policies deny ListRegions can now use EKS. Choose Configure regions on the profile in Integrations to list the regions by hand. A profile whose region discovery is blocked says so on its own row
  • Node shell now works on Bottlerocket nodes
  • An Ask AI conversation can move to a window of its own, or to an external terminal, and keep going
  • AI tools can open in an external terminal of your choice. Set the command under External Tools in Preferences, with {command}, {directory} and {title} put in for you. Left empty, the system's own terminal opens as before
  • Open Argo UI asks which Argo CD to open when a cluster has several, starting on the one you opened last. It also finds Argo CD installed with the Argo CD Operator, such as OpenShift GitOps
  • The Extension Marketplace and extension details fit narrow windows and splits

Bug Fixes#

  • Signing in to Azure again no longer fails after Lens crashed or was closed during an update. You no longer have to delete the leftover lock file by hand
  • Resource lists no longer stay stale for the rest of the session after watching them fails, such as on an error from Lens's cluster proxy. Lens lists the resources again and goes on watching
  • Lens no longer rewrites a cluster's kubeconfig before every Helm and kubectl command. On Windows this could make them fail with "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process" when several ran at once, such as when listing the Helm releases of several namespaces
  • Allow untrusted Certificate Authorities in the Proxy preferences now applies to Lens Cloud traffic too, so Lens stays signed in behind a proxy that rewrites certificates
  • Clicking an expanded cluster that is not connected, or an expanded GKE project or AWS profile that needs sign-in, now connects or signs in instead of collapsing the row
  • Back and Forward no longer skip a resource list that is still loading, which could take you all the way back to the Welcome page
  • A view whose selected namespace was deleted falls back to the default namespace instead of showing an empty list
  • Finished jobs on Kubernetes 1.31 and later show Complete or Failed in green or red in the Jobs list
  • Node conditions other than Ready are colored by type in the Nodes list and the node details
  • A lost persistent volume claim shows in red
  • A node shell that is slow to start shows in the terminal what it is waiting for, such as an image pull, instead of waiting silently for up to two minutes
  • Editing a resource that no longer exists, such as a job its CronJob cleaned up, says so in the tab and lets you close it
  • The Involved Object link in Events opens the details again after you leave the Events page and come back
  • Recent Activity and Needs Attention on the Flux dashboard follow their filters again after you leave the dashboard and come back
  • On Windows, Codex in an Ask AI tab can reach the cluster, and works on that tab's cluster rather than the one of another Codex session
  • AI tools given a prompt with an apostrophe, such as the one of Optimize cost with AI, start in Windows PowerShell instead of failing with a ParserError
  • The AI tool driving pill shows over open dialogs and menus, and you can use it there
  • Exporting a list to CSV tells you when the file could not be saved
  • A -Command in Terminal Shell Arguments no longer stops the cluster terminal and AI tools from starting in PowerShell
  • AI tool tabs restored after a restart resume their conversation in Windows PowerShell 5.1 instead of stopping at an empty prompt
  • A Prism skill you deny shows as denied instead of failed
  • The install command shown in the Lens Spaces Agent Installation dialog works when run as shown
  • cluster show in the Lens CLI prints only the YAML when asked for YAML output
  • The "Loading owners..." and "No Controlled By Resource" tooltips show on the pod logs button that jumps to the owner
  • Ingress rule links look like links
  • Links can be dragged again
  • Cancelling Help > Export Support Logs no longer leaves an error behind