How to start minikube for specific Kubernetes version

kubernetes how-to
24 Apr 2022

When you want to start minikube for specific Kubernetes release, you can use the following command:

minikube start --kubernetes-version=v1.23.0

That should set the specified Kubernetes version for the cluster. If all goes well, you will see the following output:

$ minikube start --kubernetes-version 1.23.0  

😄  minikube v1.25.2 on Darwin 12.3.1
🆕  Kubernetes 1.23.3 is now available. If you would like to upgrade, specify: --kubernetes-version=v1.23.3
✨  Using the hyperkit driver based on existing profile
👍  Starting control plane node minikube in cluster minikube
🔄  Restarting existing hyperkit VM for "minikube" ...
🐳  Preparing Kubernetes v1.23.0 on Docker 20.10.12 ...
    ▪ kubelet.housekeeping-interval=5m
🔎  Verifying Kubernetes components...
    ▪ Using image gcr.io/k8s-minikube/storage-provisioner:v5
🌟  Enabled addons: storage-provisioner, default-storageclass
🏄  Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" cluster and "default" namespace by default