time kubectl get pods >/dev/null # 12s
time kubect get --raw /api/v1/pods?resourceVersion=0  >/dev/null # 2s

Just using –raw is already faster, but telling the api that you want to read from cache with resourceVersion=0 speeds it up even more and takes load of the api-server. (be careful that reading from cache and using limit= don’t mix)

(Using –raw is similar to using curl directly, but it has the advantage of looking up the api server for you)