Last updated: July 5, 2026
Overview
The Dash0 Operator for Kubernetes provides the fastest way to add observability to your Kubernetes workloads. It installs an OpenTelemetry collector into your cluster that sends data to your Dash0 ingress endpoint with authentication configured out of the box.
What the Operator Does
The Dash0 Operator automatically:
- Instruments workloads with OpenTelemetry tracing for supported runtimes
- Collects Kubernetes metrics for clusters, nodes, pods, and containers
- Gathers pod logs and forwards them to Dash0
- Scrapes Prometheus endpoints including support for Prometheus CRDs (ServiceMonitor, PodMonitor, ScrapeConfig)
- Enables profiling via the OpenTelemetry eBPF profiler
Supported Runtimes
The operator supports automatic instrumentation for these runtimes:
- Java 8+
- Node.js 16+
- .NET
- Python (opt-in)
Metrics and log collection work for all runtimes, independent of automatic instrumentation support.
Supported Workload Types
The operator automatically instruments these workload types in monitored namespaces:
- CronJobs, DaemonSets, Deployments, Jobs, Pods, ReplicaSets, StatefulSets
How It Works
- Install the operator into your cluster via Helm
- Configure backend connection to your Dash0 organization
- Enable monitoring for specific namespaces (or all namespaces)
- Workloads are automatically instrumented when deployed to monitored namespaces
The operator modifies workload specifications to inject OpenTelemetry instrumentation without requiring code changes or rebuilding container images.
Key Features
- Zero-code instrumentation - No SDK installation or code changes required
- Automatic discovery - Detects and instruments eligible workloads automatically
- Per-namespace control - Enable monitoring selectively or cluster-wide
- Infrastructure as Code - Manage dashboards, check rules, synthetic checks, and more via Kubernetes custom resources
- Flexible configuration - Per-namespace configuration with filters, transformations, and export overrides
Get Started
- Installation - Install the Helm chart and configure prerequisites
- Configuration - Set up backend connections and enable namespace monitoring
- Automatic Workload Instrumentation - Learn how workloads are instrumented automatically
Documentation
- Metrics Collection and Prometheus Scraping - Configure metrics collection and Prometheus endpoint scraping
- Profiling - Enable continuous profiling for your workloads
- Managing Dash0 Resources - Manage dashboards, check rules, synthetic checks, and more via infrastructure-as-code
- Advanced Configuration - Configure cert-manager, node affinity, tolerations, and more
- Platform-Specific Notes and Compatibility - Guidance for AWS EKS, GKE Autopilot, Azure AKS, and other platforms
- Troubleshooting - Debug common issues
- Upgrading and Uninstallation - Upgrade the operator or remove it from your cluster