Connect a Kubernetes Cluster

01

What you'll need

Connecting a cluster takes a few minutes. The collector runs inside your cluster and only needs outbound HTTPS connectivity to Cloptima — no inbound access and no changes to your application workloads.

• kubectl access to the cluster you want to monitor
• Helm available in your shell (the installer deploys a Helm release)
• Outbound HTTPS from the cluster to Cloptima

02

Create the cluster in Cloptima

In Cloptima, start onboarding and choose Kubernetes (or Settings → Cloud Accounts → Add → Kubernetes). Give the cluster a display name (for example, prod-eks-cluster) and an optional region to help group clusters across environments. Then generate the installer script. The one-time installation token it produces is valid for 24 hours.

03

Run the installer in your cluster

The console shows a copy-ready command set. Run them in a shell with kubectl context pointed at the target cluster. Step 1 exports the one-time install token into your session; step 2 downloads and runs the installer with curl (a wget alternative is provided). The installer performs preflight checks, validates permissions, and installs the collector as a Helm release in the cloptima namespace.

04

Verify the agent and finish

Once the agent checks in, Cloptima automatically activates the cluster account and advances onboarding — metrics and resources begin streaming shortly after. If it hasn't connected yet, confirm the Helm release is healthy and check the agent logs.

kubectl logs -n cloptima deploy/cloptima-k8s-agent

05

What you get

With the collector running, Cloptima attributes cluster spend down to the workload and surfaces optimization opportunities.

• Cost by cluster, namespace, workload, and pod — direct and idle (unused-capacity) cost separated
• Rightsizing recommendations with confidence and safety scores from real utilization
• Idle and orphaned resource detection
• PR cost impact comments when workload manifests change

06

Next steps

Map namespaces to teams with virtual tags for team-level showback, set budgets and anomaly alerts, and connect GitHub to get cost impact on pull requests before they merge.