--- title: "Deploy Beyla with the Beyla Helm chart for Grafana Cloud | Grafana Beyla documentation" description: "Deploy Grafana Beyla with the Beyla Helm chart and send span metrics, service graph metrics, and traces directly to the Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoint for Application Observability and Knowledge Graph, with no collector in between." --- > For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt). # Deploy Beyla with the Beyla Helm chart for Grafana Cloud Grafana Cloud [Application Observability](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-applications/application-observability/) and [Knowledge Graph](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/knowledge-graph/) use span metrics and service graph metrics. Other instrumentation usually derives these metrics from traces. Beyla generates them directly, so you can [sample traces](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/configure/sample-traces/) or turn traces off and still get complete request rate, error, and duration (RED) metrics. With the [Beyla Helm chart](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/setup/kubernetes-helm/), Beyla sends these metrics and traces directly to the Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoint, with no collector in between. ## Before you begin Before you deploy Beyla, make sure you have the following: - A Kubernetes cluster whose nodes meet the [Beyla requirements and limitations](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/introduction/requirements/) - Helm and `kubectl`, configured for the cluster - Permission to create cluster-scoped resources and privileged Pods - A Grafana Cloud stack, and the OTLP endpoint and credentials for it. To find them, follow the procedure in [Send data to the Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoint](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/otlp/send-data-otlp/#manual-opentelemetry-setup-for-advanced-users). With the default chart values, Beyla runs as a privileged DaemonSet in the host process ID (PID) and network namespaces of each node. ## Deploy Beyla for Grafana Cloud To deploy Beyla for Grafana Cloud, complete the following steps: 1. If the `beyla` namespace doesn’t exist, create it with `kubectl create namespace beyla`. 2. Save the following Secret as `grafana-secret.yml`, and create it with `kubectl apply -f grafana-secret.yml`: YAML ![Copy code to clipboard](https://grafana.com/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```yaml apiVersion: v1 kind: Secret metadata: name: grafana-secret namespace: beyla type: Opaque stringData: otlp-headers: "Authorization=Basic " ``` Replace *``* with your instance ID and token, joined by a colon and Base64-encoded. For example, run `echo -n ':' | base64 | tr -d '\n'`. 3. Create a `helm-beyla.yml` file: YAML ![Copy code to clipboard](https://grafana.com/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```yaml config: data: metrics: features: - application_span - application_service_graph - application_host prometheus_export: null env: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: "" envValueFrom: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS: secretKeyRef: key: otlp-headers name: grafana-secret ``` Replace *``* with the OTLP endpoint that you copied from your stack, for example `https://otlp-gateway-prod-eu-west-0.grafana.net/otlp`. Beyla appends `/v1/metrics` and `/v1/traces`. 4. Add the Grafana Helm repository and update your local chart index: sh ![Copy code to clipboard](https://grafana.com/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```sh helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts helm repo update ``` 5. Install the chart: sh ![Copy code to clipboard](https://grafana.com/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```sh helm upgrade --install beyla grafana/beyla --namespace beyla -f helm-beyla.yml ``` 6. Check that the Beyla Pods are running: sh ![Copy code to clipboard](https://grafana.com/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```sh kubectl get pods --namespace beyla ``` If a Pod isn’t running, check its logs with `kubectl logs --namespace beyla `, where *``* is the Pod name from the previous command. After your applications receive requests, their services appear in [Application Observability](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-applications/application-observability/) in your Grafana Cloud stack. With this configuration, Beyla does the following: - Instruments applications in every namespace, except Kubernetes system namespaces and other namespaces that Beyla [excludes by default](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/configure/service-discovery/#default-exclude-services-from-instrumentation) - Exports span metrics, service graph metrics, and traces to Grafana Cloud - Exports the `application_host` metric, which Grafana Cloud uses for host-based pricing - Adds Kubernetes metadata attributes, for example `k8s.namespace.name` and `k8s.pod.name` - Doesn’t export [network-level metrics](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/network/) or Prometheus metrics The `features` list replaces the default Beyla `application` feature, so Beyla exports span metrics instead of OpenTelemetry semantic-convention RED metrics. ## Customize the deployment To change the chart defaults, add chart values or Beyla options to your `helm-beyla.yml` file and run the `helm upgrade --install` command again. Keep the `metrics.features` list and the OTLP settings in the file. - To review each chart default and what it grants, refer to [Review the chart defaults](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/setup/kubernetes-helm/#review-the-chart-defaults). - To instrument only some namespaces or change other Beyla options, refer to [Customize the Beyla configuration](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/setup/kubernetes-helm/#customize-the-beyla-configuration). - To run Beyla with fewer privileges, refer to [Reduce Beyla privileges](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/setup/kubernetes-helm/#reduce-beyla-privileges). ## Next steps - [Application Observability](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-applications/application-observability/) - [Configure Beyla](https://grafana.com/docs/beyla/next/configure/) - [Beyla Helm chart README](https://github.com/grafana/beyla/blob/main/charts/beyla/README.md)