// the find
groundcover-com/caretta
Instant K8s service dependency map, right to your Grafana.
Caretta is an eBPF-based Kubernetes tool that maps service-to-service network traffic in a cluster and pipes it into a bundled Grafana/Victoria Metrics stack, with zero code instrumentation. It's aimed at platform and SRE teams who want a quick dependency map without deploying a service mesh or sidecars.
eBPF tracing via CO-RE means no kernel headers or per-node compilation needed, and no sidecars or app changes required to get traffic data. The metric model (client/server name, namespace, kind, port) resolves straight to Kubernetes owner objects like Deployments, so the resulting graph is actually readable instead of a mess of pod IPs. Ships as a single helm install with Grafana and Victoria Metrics included, so there's a working dashboard in minutes rather than a pile of config to wire up yourself.
Last push was March 2025 with no recent activity, and CO-RE support means anything off the supported kernel/distro list (their docs even call out Docker for Mac) just doesn't work — no fallback path. It's a metrics-only view: you get that two services talk and how much, but no latency, error rates, or protocol-level detail, so it's a starting map, not an observability replacement. Bundled Grafana runs in anonymous mode with a default admin/caretta password baked into the chart, which is fine for a demo but something you'd need to lock down yourself before this touches anything real.