Skills

Skill 15 of 48

Verify SSI

Verify Single Step Instrumentation (SSI) is working end-to-end on Kubernetes — SSI automatically instruments applications for APM without code changes.

2 minutes · 432 words · 17 sections

Install

$ npx skills add datadog-labs/agent-skills --skill verify-ssi

$ npx skills add datadog-labs/agent-skills

The first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.

Verify APM SSI on Kubernetes

Before doing anything else: Fully resolve all variables in ## Context to resolve before acting. Do not begin Step 1 until every variable has a concrete value.

Triggers

Invoke this skill when the user expresses intent to:

Confirm SSI is working after enabling APM
Check whether pods are being instrumented
Verify the tracer is running and reporting telemetry
Confirm tracer config is applied correctly

Do NOT invoke this skill if:

SSI has not been enabled yet — run enable-ssi first
Pods are not being instrumented at all — use troubleshoot-ssi

Prerequisites

Not done: enable-ssi is complete
Not done: Application pods have been restarted since SSI was enabled

pup-cli: check, install, and authenticate

Claude runs

pup auth login --site <DD_SITE>

This opens a browser tab for OAuth. Complete the login there — Claude will continue once the command exits.

If valid token — proceed. ERROR: No browser available — use API key fallback: export DD_APP_KEY=<your-app-key>

Context to resolve before acting

Variable	How to resolve
`CLUSTER_NAME`	Check `spec.global.clusterName` in `datadog-agent.yaml`, or `kubectl config current-context`
`ENV`	Check `tags.datadoghq.com/env` label on the application Deployment
`SERVICE_NAME`	Check `tags.datadoghq.com/service` label on the application Deployment

Step 1: Confirm Pods are Instrumented

Claude runs

kubectl get pod -l app=<APP_LABEL> -n <APP_NAMESPACE> \
  -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.initContainers[*].name}'

If the output includes datadog-lib-<language>-init and datadog-init-apm-inject — SSI init containers are injected.

ERROR: Init containers missing — pod was not restarted after SSI was enabled, or namespace targeting is not matching. Restart the pod and recheck.

Step 2: Confirm the Tracer is Reporting Telemetry

Claude runs

DD_SITE=<DD_SITE> pup apm services list --env <ENV> --from 1h

If <SERVICE_NAME> appears in the services list with isTraced: true — continue to Step 3.

ERROR: Service missing — send some traffic to the app first, then retry:

Claude runs

# Port-forward and send test traffic
kubectl port-forward deployment/<DEPLOYMENT_NAME> 8099:8000 -n <APP_NAMESPACE> &
sleep 2 && for i in $(seq 1 10); do curl -s -o /dev/null http://localhost:8099/; done
sleep 30 && kill %1 2>/dev/null
DD_SITE=<DD_SITE> pup apm services list --env <ENV> --from 10m

ERROR: Still missing after traffic — check the agent’s trace receiver: kubectl exec -n <AGENT_NAMESPACE> <AGENT_POD> -c agent -- agent status | grep -A 10 "Receiver (previous minute)". If receiver shows 0 traces, go to troubleshoot-ssi.

Step 3: Confirm Tracer Configuration

Only run this step if ddTraceConfigs was explicitly configured in enable-ssi (e.g. profiling, AppSec, Data Streams). If basic SSI was set up without ddTraceConfigs, skip this step — an empty response here is expected and not a failure.

Claude runs

pup apm service-library-config get \
  --service-name <SERVICE_NAME> \
  --env <ENV>

If the output shows expected environment variables matching what was configured in ddTraceConfigs — done.

If the output is empty and ddTraceConfigs was not configured — expected, not a failure.

ERROR: Config missing but ddTraceConfigs was configured — check it is present in the DatadogAgent manifest under the correct target, and that pods were restarted after the config change.

Done

Exit when ALL of the following are true:

Not done: Step 1: target pods have SSI init containers injected (datadog-lib-<language>-init and datadog-init-apm-inject)
Not done: Step 2: service appears in pup apm services list with isTraced: true
Not done: Step 3: tracer config matches what was set in DatadogAgent

If any check fails, go to troubleshoot-ssi.

When all steps pass, automatically proceed to onboarding-summary now — do not ask the user for permission.

Security constraints

Never write a raw API key into any file or chat message
Never run kubectl delete without user confirmation

About this skill

Trigger

Verify Single Step Instrumentation (SSI) is working end-to-end on Kubernetes — SSI automatically instruments applications for APM without code changes. Only use after enable-ssi has run.

The verbatim description from this skill’s front matter — the string an agent matches on to decide whether to load it.

Colophon for this issue

Colophon

How this issue was made

Source

github.com/datadog-labs/agent-skills, branch main, last pushed 17 September 2026.

Licence

MIT — the text of every skill is reproduced unmodified, frontmatter included, under the upstream licence.

Discovery

48 skills found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 11 distinct layouts observed: agent-observability/*/SKILL.md, */SKILL.md, dd-apm/k8s-ssi/*/SKILL.md, dd-apm/linux-ssi/*/SKILL.md, dd-apm/*/SKILL.md, dd-apps/*/SKILL.md, dd-audit/*/SKILL.md, dd-browser-sdk/*/SKILL.md, dd-security/csm/*/SKILL.md, dd-software-delivery/*/SKILL.md, SKILL.md (repo root).

Issue colours

Resolved from a curated brand profile — hue 299°, chroma 0.183. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to this skill so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Shifted “17 headings” from h1 to h2 so the skill title is the only h1.

Spec compliance

12 editorial notes across 12 of 48 skills. They are printed in the margin of each skill rather than as errors here.

Agent Observability Build Eval From Annotations — 1 note
Agent Observability Eval Pipeline — 1 note
Agent Observability Replay Trace — 1 note
Dd Audit AI Activity — 1 note
Dd Audit Compliance Report — 1 note
Dd Audit Cost Spike Investigation — 1 note
Dd Audit Key Compromise — 1 note
Dd Audit Security Investigation — 1 note
Upgrade Browser SDK V5 — 1 note
Upgrade Browser SDK V6 — 1 note

and 2 more.

Images

Images inside a skill come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /datadog-labs/agent-skills.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.

Verify APM SSI on Kubernetes

Before doing anything else: Fully resolve all variables in ## Context to resolve before acting. Do not begin Step 1 until every variable has a concrete value.

Triggers

Invoke this skill when the user expresses intent to:

Confirm SSI is working after enabling APM
Check whether pods are being instrumented
Verify the tracer is running and reporting telemetry
Confirm tracer config is applied correctly

Do NOT invoke this skill if:

SSI has not been enabled yet — run enable-ssi first
Pods are not being instrumented at all — use troubleshoot-ssi

Prerequisites

Not done: enable-ssi is complete
Not done: Application pods have been restarted since SSI was enabled

pup-cli: check, install, and authenticate

Claude runs

pup --version

If not found:

Claude runs

brew tap datadog-labs/pack
brew install pup

Check auth:

pup auth status --site <DD_SITE>

If not authenticated:

Claude runs

pup auth login --site <DD_SITE>

This opens a browser tab for OAuth. Complete the login there — Claude will continue once the command exits.

If valid token — proceed. ERROR: No browser available — use API key fallback: export DD_APP_KEY=<your-app-key>

Context to resolve before acting

Variable	How to resolve
`CLUSTER_NAME`	Check `spec.global.clusterName` in `datadog-agent.yaml`, or `kubectl config current-context`
`ENV`	Check `tags.datadoghq.com/env` label on the application Deployment
`SERVICE_NAME`	Check `tags.datadoghq.com/service` label on the application Deployment

Step 1: Confirm Pods are Instrumented

Claude runs

kubectl get pod -l app=<APP_LABEL> -n <APP_NAMESPACE> \
  -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.initContainers[*].name}'

If the output includes datadog-lib-<language>-init and datadog-init-apm-inject — SSI init containers are injected.

ERROR: Init containers missing — pod was not restarted after SSI was enabled, or namespace targeting is not matching. Restart the pod and recheck.

Step 2: Confirm the Tracer is Reporting Telemetry

Claude runs

DD_SITE=<DD_SITE> pup apm services list --env <ENV> --from 1h

If <SERVICE_NAME> appears in the services list with isTraced: true — continue to Step 3.

ERROR: Service missing — send some traffic to the app first, then retry:

Claude runs

# Port-forward and send test traffic
kubectl port-forward deployment/<DEPLOYMENT_NAME> 8099:8000 -n <APP_NAMESPACE> &
sleep 2 && for i in $(seq 1 10); do curl -s -o /dev/null http://localhost:8099/; done
sleep 30 && kill %1 2>/dev/null
DD_SITE=<DD_SITE> pup apm services list --env <ENV> --from 10m

Step 3: Confirm Tracer Configuration

Claude runs

pup apm service-library-config get \
  --service-name <SERVICE_NAME> \
  --env <ENV>

If the output shows expected environment variables matching what was configured in ddTraceConfigs — done.

If the output is empty and ddTraceConfigs was not configured — expected, not a failure.

ERROR: Config missing but ddTraceConfigs was configured — check it is present in the DatadogAgent manifest under the correct target, and that pods were restarted after the config change.

Done

Exit when ALL of the following are true:

Not done: Step 1: target pods have SSI init containers injected (datadog-lib-<language>-init and datadog-init-apm-inject)
Not done: Step 2: service appears in pup apm services list with isTraced: true
Not done: Step 3: tracer config matches what was set in DatadogAgent

If any check fails, go to troubleshoot-ssi.

When all steps pass, automatically proceed to onboarding-summary now — do not ask the user for permission.

Security constraints

Never write a raw API key into any file or chat message
Never run kubectl delete without user confirmation