---
title: "Kubernetes: tail logs from pods with stern"
url: https://perrotta.dev/2024/12/kubernetes-tail-logs-from-pods-with-stern/
last_updated: 2026-01-03
---


You can always use `kubectl logs -n {namespace} {pod} [-c {container}] -f` to
inspect logs from a specific pod[^1].

[^1]: `-c` to specify a container within it, and `-f` to stream logs à la `tail
    -f`.

Nonetheless that doesn't scale when you don't know which pod you want in the
first place.

You could start with deployments, dive into replica sets, and then into
individual pods, one by one, but... that is tedious and slow.

We can do better with [stern](https://github.com/stern/stern):

> ⎈ Multi pod and container log tailing for Kubernetes

Usage:

```
stern pod-query [flags]
```

> The pod-query is a regular expression or a Kubernetes resource in the form
> `<resource>/<name>`.

Example:

```shell
% stern -n argocd argocd
```

We can also `grep` for specific strings in log lines with `--include`:

```shell
% stern -n argocd argocd --include level=error
```

Or `grep -v` with `--exclude`.

It's better to use `--include` / `--exclude` than to `| grep`, because it
preserves color attributes (each pod has a different color in the aggregated
log output).

The logs stream by default (like `tail -f`, or `kubectl logs -f`).