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How to Connect Kubernetes

5 min read Integrations

Connect your Kubernetes clusters to monitor node and pod health, resource usage, events, and logs in one place. Nova runs as a lightweight DaemonSet (one agent per node) and auto-discovers your workloads with read-only access.

Steps

1

Start the connection

Go to Settings > Integrations, find the Kubernetes tile, and click Connect.

2

Install the agent as a DaemonSet

Apply the Nova agent with your API key. Use the manifest or the Helm chart:

helm repo add nova https://charts.novaaiops.com helm install nova-agent nova/agent \ --set apiKey=$NOVA_API_KEY \ --set cluster=prod-eks
3

Grant read-only RBAC

The agent needs a read-only ClusterRole to list pods, nodes, and events. The chart creates it for you, or apply it manually if you manage RBAC yourself.

4

Watch workloads auto-discover

Within a minute, nodes and pods appear in Nova with live CPU, memory, and restart counts. No per-pod config needed.

5

Turn on logs and event alerts

Enable pod log shipping and alerts on events like CrashLoopBackOff, OOMKilled, and failed scheduling.

Tip:

The DaemonSet runs one agent per node, so metrics scale with your cluster automatically. If you also run the host agent on the nodes, Nova deduplicates the overlap.

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