The `patch_namespaced_custom_object` function will only accept patches of type `merge-patch+json` as can be seen in here: https://github.com/kubernetes-client/python/blob/master/kubernetes/client/apis/custom_objects_api.py#L2038 It should also be possible to specify a `json-patch+json` object, that is what `kubectl patch` uses.