Kubernetes Quickstart Guide

This quickstart guide will help you get Causely up and running on your Kubernetes cluster in just a few minutes. By the end of this guide, you'll have Causely installed and collecting telemetry data from your cluster.

1

Get Your Installation Command

1. Log in to the Causely portal.
2. Visit the mediators page.
3. Click the "Add new" button (or "Add ➕" button) on the mediators page.
4. In the instructions panel, you'll see the Helm installation command with your access token pre-filled.
5. Copy the complete Helm command. It will look similar to the example below.

Example Command

The command you copy will include your specific access token and cluster name. Here's what it typically looks like:

export CAUSELY_TOKEN=<your_token>
export CAUSELY_CLUSTER_NAME=<your_cluster_name>
export CAUSELY_VERSION=<version>
helm upgrade --install causely \\
  --create-namespace oci://us-docker.pkg.dev/public-causely/public/causely \\
  --version "${CAUSELY_VERSION}" \\
  --namespace=causely \\
  --set image.tag="${CAUSELY_VERSION}" \\
  --set global.cluster_name="\${CAUSELY_CLUSTER_NAME}" \\
  --set mediator.gateway.token="\${CAUSELY_TOKEN}"

Screenshot Placeholder

Screenshots of the mediators page, "Add new" button, and instructions panel will be added here.

4

Run the Installation Command

1. Open a terminal with kubectl configured to access your cluster.
2. Paste and run the Helm command you copied from the portal.
3. Wait for the installation to complete. You can monitor the progress with:

kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready pod -l app.kubernetes.io/part-of=causely -n causely --timeout=300s

5

What to Expect

Once the installation is complete, Causely will automatically:

• Enable eBPF-based instrumentation: Causely uses OpenTelemetry eBPF instrumentation, powered by Grafana Beyla, to automatically instrument your applications without requiring code changes. This provides zero-effort observability for services running in your cluster.

• Start collecting telemetry: The agent will begin discovering services, pods, and their dependencies in your cluster.

• Show data in the UI: Within a few minutes, you should start seeing entities appearing in the Causely UI at https://portal.causely.app. Services, pods, and their relationships will be automatically discovered and displayed in the topology graph.

tip

If you don't see entities appearing after a few minutes, check the mediator logs:

kubectl logs -n causely \
             -l app.kubernetes.io/name=mediator \
             -c mediator \
             --tail=-1 | grep ERROR

6

Add More Telemetry Sources

To help Causely identify root causes more effectively, connect additional telemetry sources. Visit the Telemetry Sources page to learn about the data sources that Causely supports, including:

• Prometheus
• OpenTelemetry
• Grafana
• Alertmanager
• And many more

7

Add Workflow Integrations

Push insights into your existing workflows and notification tools. Visit the Workflow Integrations page to set up integrations with:

• Slack
• Grafana
• incident.io
• Microsoft Teams
• Prometheus Alertmanager
• And more

8

What's Your Goal?

What's your goal?

Choose a goal to explore how Causely can help you achieve it.

Accelerate resolution

Get precise root cause insights during incidents to resolve issues faster.

Proactively prevent incidents

Identify emerging risks before they impact your services and SLOs.

Understand system behavior

Gain deep insights into why your systems behave the way they do.

Scale reliability

Maintain reliability across complex, fast-changing systems at scale.

Optimize performance

Continuously improve system performance with actionable insights.

Other Platforms Supported

While this quickstart guide focuses on Kubernetes, Causely also supports:

• Container Orchestration: Nomad, Docker, ECS
• GitOps: Argo CD, Flux
• Virtual Machines: Direct installation on VMs

For detailed installation instructions for these platforms, visit the Installation Overview page.