How to change a deployment's replica count — kubectl scale

Traffic spiked — or you want a deployment paused — by changing its replica count.

Placeholders follow the cheatsheet: web is a deployment/pod name and app.yaml is your manifest. Most commands act on the current namespace — add -n <ns> to target another one.

kubectl scale deployment web --replicas=5
kubectl scale deployment web --replicas=0    # "stop" it without deleting anything

kubectl Cheatsheet one-page card — commands that actually work — The full one-page card — kubectl Cheatsheet. Get the complete cheatsheet on GitHub