datadog-cli

name	datadog-cli
description	Datadog CLI for searching logs, querying metrics, tracing requests, and viewing dashboards. Use this when debugging production issues or working with Datadog observability.

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 list	List all dashboards
dashboards get	Get full dashboard definition
dashboard-lists list	List all dashboard lists
dashboard-lists get	Get dashboard list details
dashboard-lists items	List dashboards in a list

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.