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This guide walks you through deploying the Datadog Agent on a Talos-managed Kubernetes cluster using the official Datadog Helm chart.

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Prerequisites

Before you begin, you will need the following:
  • A running Talos cluster. If you don’t have one yet, see the Getting Started guide.
  • kubectl and helm installed locally.
  • A Datadog account with an API and application key.
  • Your Datadog site. This is visible in the URL when you are logged into Datadog, for example us5.datadoghq.com.

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Step 1: Create the variables

Define the variables that will be used throughout this guide. Replace each placeholder with your actual values: 
DATADOG_API_KEY=<YOUR_DATADOG_API_KEY>
DATADOG_APP_KEY=<YOUR_DATADOG_APP_KEY>
CLUSTER_NAME=<YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME>
DATADOG_SITE=<YOUR_DATADOG_SITE>

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Step 2: Add the Datadog Helm repository

Add the official Datadog Helm repository and update your local cache: 
helm repo add datadog https://helm.datadoghq.com
helm repo update

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Step 3: Create the namespace and store your credentials

Create a dedicated namespace for the Datadog Agent, then store your API key and application key as a Kubernetes secret. 
kubectl create namespace datadog
 
kubectl create secret generic datadog-secret \
  --from-literal api-key=$DATADOG_API_KEY \
  --from-literal app-key=$DATADOG_APP_KEY \
  --namespace datadog

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Step 4: Create the values file

Create a file named values.yaml with the following contents. The providers.talos.enabled flag activates all Talos-specific configuration adjustments in the chart. The kubelet.tlsVerify flag is set to false because Talos uses self-signed kubelet certificates. 
cat << EOF > values.yaml
datadog:
  apiKeyExistingSecret: datadog-secret
  appKeyExistingSecret: datadog-secret
  clusterName: $CLUSTER_NAME
  site: $DATADOG_SITE
  kubelet:
    tlsVerify: false
 
providers:
  talos:
    enabled: true
EOF

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Step 5: Install the Datadog Agent

Install the Datadog Agent using the Helm chart and the values file you created: 
helm upgrade --install datadog-agent datadog/datadog \
  --namespace datadog \
  --values values.yaml

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Step 6: Verify the deployment

Check that all Datadog pods have started successfully: 
kubectl get pods -n datadog
Wait for all pods to reach Running status with 0 restarts. You should see output similar to the following: 
NAME                                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
datadog-agent-xxxxx                           2/2     Running   0          2m
datadog-agent-cluster-agent-xxxxxxxxx-xxxxx   1/1     Running   0          2m
datadog-agent-operator-xxxxxxxxx-xxxxx        1/1     Running   0          2m
Once the agent pod shows 2/2 Running, navigate to Infrastructure in the Datadog UI. Your Talos node should appear in the host list with a status of Active.