---
title: Quickstart for Kubernetes on Elastic Cloud Serverless
description: Learn how to set up the EDOT Collector and EDOT SDKs in a Kubernetes environment with {{serverless-full}} to collect host metrics, logs and application traces.
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/solutions/observability/get-started/opentelemetry/quickstart/serverless/k8s
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless
  - Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector
  - Elastic Observability
applies_to:
  - Serverless Observability projects: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
  - Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector: Generally available
---

# Quickstart for Kubernetes on Elastic Cloud Serverless
Learn how to set up the EDOT Collector and EDOT SDKs in a Kubernetes environment with Elastic Cloud Serverless to collect host metrics, logs and application traces.

## Guided setup

Use the **Add data** screen in Elastic Observability to generate install commands that are already configured with the values you need.
1. Open Elastic Observability.
2. Go to **Add data**.
3. Select what you want to monitor.
4. Follow the instructions.


## Prerequisites

To use the OpenTelemetry Kube Stack Chart, you need Helm version 3.9+ up to and including 3.19.5.

## Manual installation

Follow these steps to deploy the EDOT Collector and EDOT OTel SDKs in Kubernetes.
<stepper>
  <step title="Add the OpenTelemetry repository to Helm">
    Run the following command to add the charts repository to Helm:
    ```bash
    helm repo add open-telemetry 'https://open-telemetry.github.io/opentelemetry-helm-charts' --force-update
    ```
  </step>

  <step title="Set up connection and credentials">
    Follow these steps to retrieve the managed OTLP endpoint URL for your Serverless project:
    1. In Elastic Cloud Serverless, open your Observability project.
    2. Go to **Add data** → **Application** → **OpenTelemetry**.
    3. Select **Managed OTLP Endpoint** in the second step.
    4. Copy the OTLP endpoint configuration value.
    5. Select **Create API Key** to generate an API key.
    Replace `<ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT>` and `<ELASTIC_API_KEY>` in the following command to create a namespace and a secret with your credentials.
    ```bash
    kubectl create namespace opentelemetry-operator-system
    kubectl create secret generic elastic-secret-otel \
    --namespace opentelemetry-operator-system \
    --from-literal=elastic_otlp_endpoint='<ELASTIC_OTLP_ENDPOINT>' \
    --from-literal=elastic_api_key='<ELASTIC_API_KEY>'
    ```
  </step>

  <step title="Install the operator">
    Install the OpenTelemetry Operator using the `kube-stack` Helm chart with the configured `values.yaml` file.
    ```bash
    helm install opentelemetry-kube-stack open-telemetry/opentelemetry-kube-stack \
    --namespace opentelemetry-operator-system \
    --values 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elastic/elastic-agent/refs/tags/v9.3.2/deploy/helm/edot-collector/kube-stack/managed_otlp/values.yaml' \
    --version '0.12.4'
    ```
    The Operator provides a deployment of the EDOT Collector and configuration environment variables. This allows SDKs and instrumentation to send data to the EDOT Collector without further configuration.
  </step>

  <step title="Auto-instrument applications">
    Add a language-specific annotation to your namespace by replacing `<LANGUAGE>` with one of the supported values (`nodejs`, `java`, `python`, `dotnet` or `go`) in the following command.
    ```bash
    kubectl annotate namespace YOUR_NAMESPACE instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-<LANGUAGE>="opentelemetry-operator-system/elastic-instrumentation"
    ```
    The OpenTelemetry Operator automatically provides the OTLP endpoint configuration and authentication to the SDKs through environment variables. Restart your deployment to ensure the annotations and auto-instrumentations are applied.For languages where auto-instrumentation is not available, manually instrument your application. See the [Setup section in the corresponding SDK](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/opentelemetry/edot-sdks).
  </step>

  <step title="Explore your data">
    Go to Kibana and select **Dashboards** to explore your newly collected data.
  </step>
</stepper>


## Troubleshooting

The following issues might occur.

### API Key prefix not found

The following error is due to an improperly formatted API key:
```txt
Exporting failed. Dropping data.
{"kind": "exporter", "data_type": }
"Unauthenticated desc = ApiKey prefix not found"
```

Format your API key as `"Authorization": "ApiKey <api-key-value-here>"` or `"Authorization=ApiKey <api-key>"` depending on whether you're using a Collector or SDK.

### Error: too many requests

The managed endpoint has per-project rate limits in place. If you reach this limit, contact our [support team](https://support.elastic.co).