<p><code>kubectl get</code> command has this flag <code>-o</code> to format the output.</p>

<p>Is there a similar way to format the output of the <code>kubectl describe</code> command?</p>

<p>For example:</p>

<pre><code>kubectl describe -o="jsonpath={...}" pods my-rc
</code></pre>

<p>would print a JSON format for the list of pods in <code>my-rc</code> replication controller. But <code>-o</code> is not accepted for the <code>describe</code> command.</p>

<p><code>kubectl describe</code> doesn't support <code>-o</code> or equivalent. It's meant to be human-readable rather than script-friendly. You can achieve what you described with <code>kubectl get pods -l &lt;selector_of_your_rc&gt; -o &lt;output_format&gt;</code>, for example:</p>

<pre><code>$ kubectl get pods -l app=guestbook,tier=frontend -o name
pod/frontend-a4kjz
pod/frontend-am1ua
pod/frontend-yz2dq
</code></pre>
