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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 infer Diagnoses more effectively, connect additional telemetry sources. Visit the Telemetry Sources page to learn about the data sources that Causely supports, including:

7

Review Discovery​

You have successfully installed Causely! Navigate to https://portal.causely.app to verify your environment has been discovered. You should see entities populated in the Topology view:

Topology View

If the entities and connections you are expecting to see are not appearing, go to the Integrations page and check for any errors for the telemetry sources you have configured.

Integration Errors

Errors in the integrations page will prevent Causely from discovering entities and connections in your environment. Follow the troubleshooting steps to resolve the errors.

8

Connect Causely to AI Agents​

Give your agents access to Causely's causal model via the MCP server. Any MCP-compatible agent or assistant including Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, HolmesGPT, or your own custom agent, can query root causes, service health, dependency maps, and reliability reports directly.

Visit the agent integration page to get started.

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.