Update content/en/docs/reference/_index.md

rxinui · lmktfy · web-flow · commit 5bdbbaa6f803 · 2025-11-21T11:42:26.000+01:00
Co-authored-by: Tim Bannister &lt;193443691+lmktfy@users.noreply.github.com&gt;
diff --git a/content/en/docs/reference/_index.md b/content/en/docs/reference/_index.md
@@ -117,6 +117,17 @@ An archive of the design docs for Kubernetes functionality. Good starting points
 
 ## Encodings
 
-These are encodings defined by the Kubernetes project
+Tools such as {{< glossary_tooltip text="kubectl" term_id="kubectl" >}}
+can work with different formats / encodings. These include:
 
-* [KYAML](/docs/reference/encodings/kyaml)
+* [CBOR](https://cbor.io/), used on the network but **not** available as a kubectl output format
+  * See [CBOR resource encoding](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/using-api/api-concepts/#cbor-encoding)
+* [JSON](https://www.json.org/), available as a `kubectl` output format and also used at the HTTP layer
+* [KYAML](/docs/reference/encodings/kyaml), a Kubernetes dialect of YAML
+  * KYAML is essentially an _output format_; any place where you can provide KYAML to Kubernetes, you can also provide any other valid YAML input
+* [YAML](https://yaml.org/), available as a `kubectl` output format and also used at the HTTP layer
+
+Kubernetes also has a custom [protobuf encoding](/docs/reference/using-api/api-concepts/#protobuf-encoding) that is only used within HTTP messages.
+
+The `kubectl` tool supports some other output formats, such as _custom columns_;
+see [output formats](/docs/reference/kubectl/#output-options) in the kubectl reference.
