mcpbeat

Datadog CLI

softaworks/datadog-cli

Datadog CLI for searching logs, querying metrics, tracing requests, and managing dashboards. Use this when debugging production issues or working with Datadog observability.

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the whole folder, loaded on every use
7
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instructions only
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copies elsewhere
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2271
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository
npx skills add https://github.com/softaworks/agent-toolkit --skill datadog-cli

The instruction itself

16 sections, as written by the author

Datadog CLI

A CLI tool for AI agents to debug and triage using Datadog logs and metrics.

Required Reading

You MUST read the relevant reference docs before using any command:

  • Log Commands
  • Metrics
  • Query Syntax
  • Workflows
  • Dashboards

Setup

Environment Variables (Required)

export DD_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export DD_APP_KEY="your-app-key"

Get keys from: https://app.datadoghq.com/organization-settings/api-keys

Running the CLI

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli <command>

For non-US Datadog sites, use --site flag:

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs search --query "*" --site datadoghq.eu

Commands Overview

| Command | Description |

|---------|-------------|

| logs search | Search logs with filters |

| logs tail | Stream logs in real-time |

| logs trace | Find logs for a distributed trace |

| logs context | Get logs before/after a timestamp |

| logs patterns | Group similar log messages |

| logs compare | Compare log counts between periods |

| logs multi | Run multiple queries in parallel |

| logs agg | Aggregate logs by facet |

| metrics query | Query timeseries metrics |

| errors | Quick error summary by service/type |

| services | List services with log activity |

| dashboards | Manage dashboards (CRUD) |

| dashboard-lists | Manage dashboard lists |

Quick Examples

Search Errors

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs search --query "status:error" --from 1h --pretty

Tail Logs (Real-time)

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs tail --query "service:api status:error" --pretty

Error Summary

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli errors --from 1h --pretty

Trace Correlation

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs trace --id "abc123def456" --pretty

Query Metrics

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli metrics query --query "avg:system.cpu.user{*}" --from 1h --pretty

Compare Periods

npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs compare --query "status:error" --period 1h --pretty

Global Flags

| Flag | Description |

|------|-------------|

| --pretty | Human-readable output with colors |

| --output <file> | Export results to JSON file |

| --site <site> | Datadog site (e.g., datadoghq.eu) |

Time Formats

  • Relative: 30m, 1h, 6h, 24h, 7d
  • ISO 8601: 2024-01-15T10:30:00Z

Incident Triage Workflow

# 1. Quick error overview
npx @leoflores/datadog-cli errors --from 1h --pretty

# 2. Is this new? Compare to previous period
npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs compare --query "status:error" --period 1h --pretty

# 3. Find error patterns
npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs patterns --query "status:error" --from 1h --pretty

# 4. Narrow down by service
npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs search --query "status:error service:api" --from 1h --pretty

# 5. Get context around a timestamp
npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs context --timestamp "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z" --service api --pretty

# 6. Follow the distributed trace
npx @leoflores/datadog-cli logs trace --id "TRACE_ID" --pretty

See workflows.md for more debugging workflows.

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take softaworks/datadog-cli from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.

Install what it needs

The instructions reference npx. Without those the skill loads but fails at the first command.