# rpk

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/llms.txt). Component-specific: [streaming-full.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/streaming-full.txt)

---
title: rpk
latest-redpanda-tag: v26.1.14
latest-console-tag: v3.9.0
latest-operator-version: v26.2.1
# EOL = End-of-Life (support lifecycle status)
page-is-nearing-eol: "false"
page-is-past-eol: "false"
page-eol-date: March 31, 2027
latest-connect-version: 4.104.0
docname: rpk/rpk
page-component-name: streaming
page-version: "26.1"
page-component-version: "26.1"
page-component-title: Streaming
page-relative-src-path: rpk/rpk.adoc
page-edit-url: https://github.com/redpanda-data/docs/edit/v/26.1/modules/reference/pages/rpk/rpk.adoc
description: <code>rpk</code> is the Redpanda CLI and toolbox for managing Redpanda clusters, topics, consumer groups, and streaming pipelines.
page-git-created-date: "2026-07-17"
page-git-modified-date: "2026-07-28"
support-status: supported
---

<!-- Source: https://docs.redpanda.com/streaming/26.1/reference/rpk/rpk.md -->

`rpk` is the Redpanda CLI and toolbox for managing Redpanda clusters, topics, consumer groups, and streaming pipelines.

## [](#usage)Usage

```bash
rpk [flags]
```

## [](#subcommands)Subcommands

| Command | Description |
| --- | --- |
| rpk cloud | Interact with Redpanda Cloud. |
| rpk cluster | Manage and inspect Redpanda cluster configuration, health, and maintenance operations. |
| rpk connect | Run and manage Redpanda Connect streaming pipelines. Redpanda Connect is a high-performance stream processor for mundane data engineering tasks. |
| rpk container | Manage a local Redpanda container cluster for development and testing. Creates containers using Docker or Podman. |
| rpk debug | Debug the local Redpanda process. |
| rpk generate | Generate a configuration template for related services. |
| rpk group | Manage Kafka consumer groups, including listing groups, viewing lag, and resetting offsets. |
| rpk help | Help provides help for any command in the application. Simply type rpk help [path to command] for full details. |
| rpk iotune | Measure filesystem performance and create IO configuration file. |
| rpk plugin | List, download, update, and remove rpk plugins. Plugins augment rpk with new commands. |
| rpk profile | Manage rpk configuration profiles. Profiles store connection settings for different clusters, making it easy to switch between environments. |
| rpk redpanda | Interact with a local Redpanda process. |
| rpk registry | Commands to interact with the schema registry. |
| rpk security | Manage Redpanda security. |
| rpk shadow | Manage Redpanda Shadow Links. Shadowing is Redpanda’s enterprise-grade disaster recovery solution that establishes asynchronous, offset-preserving replication between two distinct Redpanda clusters. |
| rpk topic | Manage Kafka topics, including creating, deleting, and configuring topics. Also includes commands for producing and consuming messages. |
| rpk transform | Develop, build, deploy, and manage WebAssembly (Wasm) data transforms for Redpanda. |
| rpk version | Prints the current rpk and Redpanda version. This command prints the current rpk version and allows you to list the Redpanda version running on each node in your cluster. |

## [](#global-flags)Global flags

| Value | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| --config | string | Redpanda or rpk config file; default search paths are ~/.config/rpk/rpk.yaml, $PWD/redpanda.yaml, and /etc/redpanda/redpanda.yaml. |
| -X, --config-opt | stringArray | Override rpk configuration settings; -X help for detail or -X list for terser detail. |
| --ignore-profile | bool | Ignore rpk.yaml and redpanda.yaml; use default settings. |
| --profile | string | rpk profile to use. |
| -v, --verbose | bool | Enable verbose logging. |