Korrel8r
What is Korrel8r?
Korrel8r is a rule-based correlation engine for Kubernetes clusters.
It connects cluster resources and observability signals — logs, metrics, alerts, traces, network flows — into a graph of related data.
It searches multiple back-ends with different APIs and query languages automatically.
Given any starting point — an alert, a pod, a deployment — it finds related data across multiple signal stores,
such as Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, and the Kubernetes API.
Neighborhood Search
: Find everything reachable within N steps.
"Show me everything related to this pod" — returns owning deployments, logs, metrics, network flows, and more.
Goal Search
: Find paths to a specific type of data.
"Find all logs related to this alert" — korrel8r connects the alert to deployments, deployments to pods, pods to logs.
Use cases
Interactive troubleshooting
: The OpenShift troubleshooting panel displays interactive correlation graphs using Korrel8r as a back-end. Click to jump to relevant resources directly, without manually discovering the intermediate relationships.
AI-agent troubleshooting
: Korrel8r provides an MCP interface for AI agents. Its rule-based engine searches and correlates large data sets faster than an AI agent can. It builds a small, focused graph of relevant signals, so the AI can concentrate on understanding the problem rather than spending tokens discovering connections.
Custom automation
: Korrel8r provides REST and MCP interfaces, can run as a cluster service or a command, and can be used as a Go library.
Embed it in custom automation solutions that need correlation data.
Extending
Rules
: Take data from a "start" class to generate a "goal" query for related data.
Rules are written as YAML files using Go template syntax.
Domains
: A "domain" defines a signal type, query language, and data store.
New domains can be added to the engine. Coding is required.
Installing
# Latest release
go install github.com/korrel8r/korrel8r/cmd/korrel8r@latest # Executable
docker pull quay.io/korrel8r/korrel8r:latest # Image
# Daily images from main for development, not tested for release.
docker pull quay.io/korrel8r/korrel8r:dev-latest
See all available images at: https://quay.io/repository/korrel8r/korrel8r?tab=tags
Contributing
We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to get started.
AI-Assisted Development
Korrel8r includes custom commands for Claude Code to streamline development:
/generate-rule - Interactive assistant for creating correlation rules.- See .claude/commands/ for available commands.
License
This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.
