> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.costgraph.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overview

> Monitor Kubernetes cost, usage, and rightsizing with the CostGraph Operator

The CostGraph Operator runs in your Kubernetes cluster and continuously reports its state to CostGraph. It deploys two components:

* **Resource exporter** — watches every Kubernetes resource (workloads, nodes, namespaces, and more) and exports their definitions to CostGraph.
* **Metrics scraper** — scrapes cluster, host, and container metrics and remote-writes them to CostGraph.

Together they collect:

* **Cluster inventory** — the live manifests of all resources in the cluster.
* **Container metrics** — per-container CPU and memory from cAdvisor.
* **Host metrics** — node CPU, memory, disk, and network from node-exporter and the kubelet.
* **Kubernetes object metrics** — pod, deployment, and node state from kube-state-metrics.
* **GPU metrics** — optional, from the NVIDIA DCGM exporter.

On the CostGraph platform, this data powers:

* **Workload and namespace cost** — spend attributed across pods, deployments, and namespaces.
* **Rightsizing recommendations** — CPU and memory resize suggestions for your workloads.
* **Idle detection** — workloads running consistently below their requests.
* **Cost anomalies** — unusual spend or utilization changes surfaced automatically.

## Prerequisites

* A running Kubernetes cluster
* [Helm 3+](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/)
* An API key from the [CostGraph platform](https://app.costgraph.ai/settings/account/api-keys)

## Install

<Steps>
  <Step title="Add the Helm repository">
    ```shell theme={null}
    helm repo add costgraph http://charts.costgraph.ai/
    helm repo update
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step title="Install the operator">
    ```shell theme={null}
    helm install costgraph-operator costgraph/costgraph-operator \
      --namespace costgraph \
      --create-namespace \
      --set global.clusterName=<your-cluster-name> \
      --set global.apiKey=<your-api-key>
    ```

    For production, store the API key in a Secret and reference it with `global.existingSecret` instead of passing it inline — see [Configuration](/costgraph/operator/configuration#global-settings).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Verify">
    ```shell theme={null}
    kubectl get pods -n costgraph
    ```

    Once all pods are `Running`, your cluster appears in the [CostGraph platform](https://app.costgraph.ai/).
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  Running GPU nodes? Enable the DCGM exporter for GPU metrics — see [Configuration](/costgraph/operator/configuration#subcharts).
</Note>

The chart ships with sensible defaults. To tune scheduling, metrics sources, or the bundled exporters, see the [Configuration reference](/costgraph/operator/configuration).