Kubernetes Agent

The Kubernetes agent uses the in-cluster Kubernetes API to collect pod, node, service, and event data, no Docker socket needed. It is deployed as a Deployment with a ClusterRole that grants read-only access to cluster resources.

Prerequisites

• Helm 3.10+
• kubectl configured with access to your cluster
• A KubeWatch API key (from Settings → API Keys in the dashboard)

Step 1: Add the Helm repository

helm repo add kubewatch https://charts.kubewatchlabs.com
helm repo update

Step 2: Install the agent

helm install kubewatch-agent kubewatch/kubewatch-agent \
  --namespace kubewatch \
  --create-namespace \
  --set agent.apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY \
  --set agent.clusterName=my-production-cluster \
  --set agent.interval=15 \
  --set agent.logLevel=info

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual API key and my-production-cluster with a descriptive name for this cluster, it will appear in the KubeWatch dashboard agent selector.

The agent connects to KubeWatch automatically, there is no endpoint to configure.

Step 3: Verify the agent is running

kubectl get pods -n kubewatch

Expected output:

NAME                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubewatch-agent-7d9f8b6c4d-xk2pq   1/1     Running   0          45s

Check the agent logs to confirm it registered successfully:

kubectl logs -n kubewatch -l app=kubewatch-agent

You should see:

INFO  agent registered, id=agent_abc123 cluster=my-production-cluster
INFO  push ok, containers=12 pods=8 nodes=3

RBAC

The Helm chart creates a ClusterRole that grants read-only access to the following resources:

No write permissions are granted. The agent never modifies cluster resources.

Helm values reference

Uninstall

helm uninstall kubewatch-agent -n kubewatch
kubectl delete namespace kubewatch