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Installation Overview

Causely agents are lightweight components that can be installed on your servers in minutes to provide a real-time Diagnosis. This page covers what gets deployed when you install Causely, the key benefits of its distributed architecture, and how to get started with the installation.

Causely works alongside your existing observability tools, processing telemetry data locally while keeping your raw data secure in your datacenter. The platform automatically discovers service dependencies, builds topology maps, and infers Diagnoses without requiring you to send terabytes of telemetry data to the cloud, resulting in dramatically lower costs and stronger privacy compared to traditional observability platforms.

Installation Options​

Choose the installation method that best fits your infrastructure and deployment preferences:


Telemetry Sources

After deployment, telemetry data can be ingested from any source. Causely's mediator listens for OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) data on port 4317, making it easy to send data from existing OpenTelemetry Collectors or any OTLP-compatible source.

What Gets Deployed​

When you install Causely, the following components are deployed in your infrastructure:

To learn more about how causely works, see How Causely Works.

The relevant documentation for your security considerations can be found in the Security section.

Mediator​

The core component that runs locally in your environment and serves as the data processing layer:

  • Signal Detection: Converts telemetry from various sources into binary signal states
  • Topology Discovery: Automatically discovers services, infrastructure, and dependencies
  • Local Processing: Keeps raw telemetry local; only distilled insights and targeted evidence are sent to the Causely backend
  • OTLP Endpoint: Listens on port 4317 for OpenTelemetry Protocol data

The mediator handles secure communication with Causely's causal reasoning system. To learn what the mediator does with each type of telemetry and how it scales, see Mediator Details.

eBPF Instrumentation (Default)​

Causely leverages OpenTelemetry eBPF instrumentation, powered by Grafana Beyla, to automatically collect the following telemetry data:

  • Service dependencies and communication patterns
  • Synchronous and asynchronous communication signals
  • Performance metrics without code changes
eBPF Configuration

eBPF instrumentation can be disabled if you already have comprehensive telemetry coverage. However, we recommend keeping it enabled as it serves as telemetry quality assurance, ensuring you have complete visibility into service dependencies and communication patterns.

If your existing OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, or other telemetry sources already provide excellent coverage, you can disable eBPF to reduce overhead.

Executor​

The Executor is an optional component and can be enabled as part of the deployment process. The Executor is responsible for executing remediation actions.

VictoriaMetrics​

VictoriaMetrics is a timeseries database used by the agents and mediator to store additional timeseries data.

Data Sources and Integration​

While the components are deployed via Helm or CLI, data can be sent to the Causely mediator from multiple sources. See all available telemetry sources for a complete list, but make sure you have at least one source providing traces for the platform to be most effective. Without traces, Causely's ability to discover service dependencies and perform root cause analysis is severely limited.

Any source that generates OpenTelemetry traces is perfect - Causely comes with auto-instrumentation for that, but if you already have another solution like groundcover, Odigos, Grafana Beyla, an existing OpenTelemetry Collector, you can use those as well.

Additionally, Causely can leverage data from datadog and dynatrace to discover service dependencies.

Key Benefits of Causely's Architecture​

Because the mediator processes telemetry inside your environment, only distilled insights and targeted evidence leave it. That keeps egress small, keeps raw telemetry in your datacenter, and lets mediators run at the edge of your infrastructure. With eBPF instrumentation, Causely also starts collecting traces without code changes. For the full picture, see Why run the mediator in your environment.

Below are the recommended resource requests and limits for the main Causely components as typically deployed. You may need or want to adjust these values based on your environment, workload, or scaling requirements.

Mediator

  • CPU: minimum 100m, up to 2
  • Memory: minimum 128Mi, up to 8Gi
  • Storage: 10Gi

Executor

  • CPU: minimum 100m, up to 2
  • Memory: minimum 128Mi, up to 8Gi
  • Storage: not required

VictoriaMetrics

  • CPU: minimum 100m, up to 4
  • Memory: minimum 128Mi, up to 8Gi
  • Storage: 50Gi

Next Steps​

After installation, we recommend:

  1. Integrate Agents: Give MCP-compatible agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and HolmesGPT deterministic causal context see Agent Integration
  2. Connect Additional Data Sources: Visit Telemetry Sources to learn about supported integrations
  3. Customize Your Setup: Learn about advanced configuration options in Customize Installation

For a detailed explanation of how Causely works, see How Causely Works.