Add a pod template annotation to each pod you want to auto-instrument

To auto-instrument a deployment, update its spec.template.metadata.annotations to include the co.elastic.apm/attach key. The webhook matches the value of this key to the webhookConfig.agents value defined in your Helm values file.

For example, if your Webhook values file includes the following:

		...
webhookConfig:
  agents:
    java:
...

	

Then your co.elastic.apm/attach value should be java:

		apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  # ...
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        co.elastic.apm/attach: java 1
      labels:
        # ...
    spec:
      #...

	

The APM attacher configuration webhookConfig.agents.java matches co.elastic.apm/attach: java. If you define further configurations, for example the java-dev configuration below, and you wanted to use that definition for this deployment, this entry would be java-dev instead of java

The spec.template.metadata.annotations value allows you to set custom environment variables and images per deployment. For example, your Helm values file might configure a number of deployments: java-dev might have a different APM environment from java-prod, and backend2 use a different APM agent than other deployments.

		agents:
  java-dev:
    image: docker.elastic.co/observability/apm-agent-java:latest
    artifact: "/usr/agent/elastic-apm-agent.jar"
    environment:
      ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL: "http://192.168.1.10:8200"
      ELASTIC_APM_ENVIRONMENT: "dev"
      ELASTIC_APM_LOG_LEVEL: "debug"
      ELASTIC_APM_PROFILING_INFERRED_SPANS_ENABLED: "true"
      JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: "-javaagent:/elastic/apm/agent/elastic-apm-agent.jar"
  java-prod:
    image: docker.elastic.co/observability/apm-agent-java:1.44.0 1
    artifact: "/usr/agent/elastic-apm-agent.jar"
    environment:
      ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL: "http://192.168.1.11:8200"
      ELASTIC_APM_ENVIRONMENT: "prod"
      ELASTIC_APM_LOG_LEVEL: "info"
      ELASTIC_APM_PROFILING_INFERRED_SPANS_ENABLED: "true"
      JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: "-javaagent:/elastic/apm/agent/elastic-apm-agent.jar"
  backend2:
    image: docker.elastic.co/observability/apm-agent-nodejs:latest
    artifact: "/opt/nodejs/node_modules/elastic-apm-node"
    environment:
      NODE_OPTIONS: "-r /elastic/apm/agent/elastic-apm-node/start"
      ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL: "http://192.168.1.11:8200"
      ELASTIC_APM_SERVICE_NAME: "petclinic"
      ELASTIC_APM_LOG_LEVEL: "info"

	

The example here shows a java-prod configuration which specifies a specific version of the agent instead of the latest

Important

The only webhookConfig.agents values defined in values.yaml are java and nodejs. When using other values, you must explicitly specify image, artifact, and *OPTIONS values.

Important

The environment variables defined in the webhook and here take precedence - overwrite - the values defined in the Kubernetes deployments. For example if your image uses JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS, the value your image sets will be ignored in favour of the value set here or in the values.yaml.