Finding the name of a new pod with kubectl

Complementing what @nickgryg said, if kubernetes is in the cloud you can add the namespace and kubeconfig to get the pod name:

kubectl get pods -l app=my-app -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}" -n my-namespace --kubeconfig=/home/$USER/.kube/kubeconfig

And to delete it with a single command, you can use the following:

NAMESPACE=my-namespace APP_NAME=my-app && kubectl delete -n $NAMESPACE pod $(kubectl get pods -l app=$APP_NAME -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}" -n $NAMESPACE --kubeconfig=/home/$USER/.kube/kubeconfig) --kubeconfig=/home/$USER/.kube/kubeconfig

You need to label your deployment somehow, for example we set label app: myapp below:

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1                                                                                                                                                                          
kind: Deployment                                                                                                                                                                                        
metadata:                                                                                                                                                                                               
  name: nginx                                                                                                                                                                                     
spec:                                                                                                                                                                                                   
  template:                                                                                                                                                                                             
    metadata:                                                                                                                                                                                           
      labels:                                                                                                                                                                                           
        app: my-app                                                                                                                                                                                
    spec:                                                                                                                                                                                               
      containers:                                                                                                                                                                                       
      - image: nginx                                                                                                                                                    
        name: nginx  

After that you can get deployment's pod name very easy:

POD=$(kubectl get pod -l app=my-app -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}")

and execute some command there, for example:

kubectl exec -ti $POD -- uname -a

Like Nickolay wrote, use a label to help selecting. Then you can use

kubectl get pods -l app=my-app -o custom-columns=:metadata.name

This gets you the name of the pod that has the label "app=my-app"

All other answers doesnt work for me

Not working option

kubectl -n $NAMESPACE get pods  -l app.kubernetes.io/name=nats  -o name

working option

kubectl -n $NAMESPACE get pods  --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=nats  -o name