[throwaway894345]

kubectl apply on a directory doesn’t work because deleting a resource manifest won’t delete the corresponding resources.

[kube-system]

It does work, as long as you’re not deleting anything. :) That might be good enough for a “very small kube cluster for my hobby project”

I only use ‘kubectl apply’ for small stuff where I only have a couple resources. Anything more complicated and a tool like helm is much more useful.

[bavell]

'kubectl delete -f dir/' will delete all resources in the directory.

[throwaway894345]

Right, but the only resource you want to delete is no longer in that directory, so you’ve now deleted every resource you except the one you actually wanted to delete. :)

[bavell]

Ah, I slightly misunderstood. Still, you should always have your manifests under version control so this shouldn't ever be a problem :)