This guide helps you deploy a local Kubernetes environment using Minikube, install the Coralogix OpenTelemetry agent and collector, and connect everything to Infrastructure Explorer.

With this setup, you can:

- Deploy a complete observability stack locally using Minikube
- Generate realistic telemetry data with the OpenTelemetry Demo application
- Collect and forward infrastructure data to Coralogix
- Verify that your logs, metrics, and traces are flowing end to end

## Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure the following are installed and configured:

- Minikube, `kubectl`, and Helm `v3.x`
- Docker Desktop (used by Minikube driver)
- A Coralogix account with a valid Send Your Data API key
- Minimum system resources: 4 CPU cores and 6 GB RAM
- Coralogix Helm chart version `0.0.133` or later (required for Infrastructure Explorer support)

## Setup options

Two ways to deploy:

1. Use the [Kubernetes Complete Observability Integration](https://coralogix.com/docs/user-guides/infrastructure/infrastructure-explorer/getting-started-kubernetes-monitoring/index.md)
1. Follow the step-by-step guide below (CLI-based installation)

## Step-by-step installation

### Step 1: Install required tools

```bash
# Install Minikube
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64 \
  && sudo install minikube-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube

# Install kubectl
curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl" \
  && chmod +x kubectl && sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/

# Install Helm 3
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash
```

### Step 2: Start a Minikube cluster

Spin up a two-node cluster (or use a single-node if preferred):

```bash
minikube start --nodes 2 --driver=docker
```

### Step 3: Add the Coralogix Helm repository

```bash
helm repo add coralogix https://cgx.jfrog.io/artifactory/coralogix-charts-virtual
helm repo update
```

### Step 4: Create Coralogix secret

Replace `<YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY>` with your actual API key:

```bash
kubectl create namespace coralogix && \
kubectl create secret generic coralogix-keys \
  --namespace coralogix \
  --from-literal=PRIVATE_KEY=<YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY>
```

### Step 5: Create your `values.yaml`

This configuration enables Infrastructure Explorer and optimizes the data footprint.

```yaml
global:
  domain: <YOUR_CORALOGIX_ACCOUNT_DOMAIN>
  clusterName: <YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME>

opentelemetry-cluster-collector:
  presets:
    reduceResourceAttributes:
      enabled: true
    kubernetesResources:
      enabled: true
      periodicCollection:
        enabled: true
      dropManagedFields:
        enabled: true

opentelemetry-agent:
  presets:
    spanMetrics:
      histogramBuckets:
        - 1ms
        - 4ms
        - 10ms
        - 20ms
        - 50ms
        - 100ms
        - 200ms
        - 500ms
        - 1s
        - 2s
        - 5s
    headSampling:
      enabled: true
      percentage: 10.0
    logsCollection:
      reduceLogAttributes:
        enabled: true
    hostMetrics:
      process:
        enabled: true
    reduceResourceAttributes:
      enabled: true
  targetAllocator:
    enabled: false

opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler:
  enabled: false

opentelemetry-gateway:
  presets:
    reduceResourceAttributes:
      enabled: true
```

### Step 6: Deploy the Coralogix integration

```bash
helm upgrade --install otel-coralogix-integration coralogix/otel-integration \
  --namespace coralogix \
  --create-namespace \
  --render-subchart-notes \
  -f <values.yaml file path>
```

The Coralogix agent and collector should now be running in the `coralogix` namespace.

## Next steps

Simulate realistic traffic and test end-to-end observability by [deploying the OpenTelemetry demo app](https://coralogix.com/docs/user-guides/infrastructure/infrastructure-explorer/deploy-otel-demo/index.md).

## Related resources

- [Deploy OpenTelemetry demo app](https://coralogix.com/docs/user-guides/infrastructure/infrastructure-explorer/deploy-otel-demo/index.md)
- [Getting started with Kubernetes monitoring](https://coralogix.com/docs/user-guides/infrastructure/infrastructure-explorer/getting-started-kubernetes-monitoring/index.md)
- [Explore your infrastructure](https://coralogix.com/docs/user-guides/infrastructure/infrastructure-explorer/explore-infra/index.md)