Mechanics does not hand users a kubeconfig as the default debugging interface. Instead, it brings the most useful operational facts back through SSH commands that are scoped to the authenticated tenant.
App info became an operational snapshot
0.1.25 made app info much deeper. The command reports Argo CD target and
synced revisions, sync and health state, operation timestamps, managed
resources, live Deployment replicas, container images, Pods, restarts, and
recent warning events. A user can see whether an app is waiting on Argo CD,
Kubernetes rollout, image pull, pod readiness, or something else.
Later releases added image drift detection. app info compares the image tag
declared in GitOps with the live container image, so a user can tell whether the
cluster has actually converged to the intended version.
Logs and events moved into SSH
0.1.50 added app logs and app events. Logs support bounded tails,
previous container logs, and container selection. Events surface recent warnings
and failures without requiring a raw kubectl get events. The commands stay
tenant-scoped and app-aware, which keeps debugging useful without widening
platform authority.
The same release added app wait --gone, so deletion can be observed all
the way to the disappearance of Applications, Deployments, and Pods. Removal is
not treated as complete just because a GitOps write happened.
Routes got real diagnostics
route info now answers the questions that usually decide whether a public
endpoint is broken: did the network Application sync, did the Gateway accept the
route, is the certificate ready, does the backend Service exist, and are there
ready endpoints behind it?
0.1.57 added a small but useful smoke-test detail: Mechanics-managed routes set
a Mech-Route response header. route wait can suggest curl checks for
that header, so API apps that return 404, 401, or another non-2xx from
/ can still prove the request reached the intended route.
Addons follow the same pattern
Addons added their own inspection loop: addon list, addon info, and
addon wait. Each addon type supplies its own readiness reader and
connection contract, but the user experience stays consistent. Mechanics shows
whether the service exists, whether it is ready, and which secret or endpoint an
app should consume.
The goal is not to replace every cluster tool. It is to put the first useful diagnostic in the same control plane that performed the deploy.