Datadog Error Rate Check

Last updated on Jul 16, 2026

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Datadog APM error rate check validates the error rate of a service using Datadog APM metrics. The target service and environment are supplied at runtime via probe variables, allowing this probe to be reused across services.

Infrastructure type

• Kubernetes

Use cases

Datadog Error Rate Check probe helps you:

• Verify error rate stays below threshold during chaos
• Monitor error budget consumption during fault injection
• Validate service recovery after dependency failures
• Detect error spikes during network or pod chaos

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Overview

This probe queries Datadog APM for the error_rate stat of the target service, converts the fraction to a percentage using the formula errorRate*100, and compares the mean aggregated value against your threshold.

Probe type

APM Probe (Datadog)

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes chaos infrastructure with Harness Delegate
• A configured Datadog connector
• Datadog APM instrumented on the target service
• Probe variable SERVICE_NAME set at experiment runtime

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Probe properties

Comparator

Type	Criteria	Default value
float	<=	5

The probe passes when the mean error rate (as a percentage) is less than or equal to the comparator value.

Datadog APM probe inputs

Field	Description	Default
connectorID	Identifier of the Datadog connector	Required at runtime
durationInMin	Look-back window in minutes	10
queryType	Datadog query API version	v2
queries[0].name	Query alias used in the formula	errorRate
queries[0].dataSource	Metric source type	apm_metrics
queries[0].params.env	Datadog APM environment	<+probe.variables.ENV>
queries[0].params.service	Datadog APM service name	<+probe.variables.SERVICE_NAME>
queries[0].params.stat	APM error stat	error_rate
formula	Converts fraction to percentage	errorRate*100
aggregation	Aggregation over the time window	mean

Probe variables

Variable	Description	Required
SERVICE_NAME	Datadog APM service name	Yes
ENV	Datadog APM environment tag	No

Configurable inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
CONNECTOR_ID	Datadog connector identifier	Yes	-
DURATION_IN_MIN	Look-back window in minutes	No	10
COMPARATOR_VALUE	Error rate threshold as a percentage	Yes	5

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Run properties

Property	Description	Type	Default
timeout	Maximum time to wait for the probe to complete	String	30s
interval	Time between probe executions	String	5s
attempt	Number of retry attempts before marking as failed	Integer	1
pollingInterval	Time between retry attempts	String	30s
initialDelay	Initial delay before starting the probe	String	1s
stopOnFailure	Stop the experiment if the probe fails	Boolean	false
verbosity	Log verbosity level	String	debug

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Probe definition

You can define this probe in your chaos experiment as follows:

probe:
  - name: datadog-error-rate-check
    type: apmProbe
    mode: Continuous
    apmProbe/inputs:
      type: Datadog
      comparator:
        type: float
        value: "5"
        criteria: <=
      datadogApmProbeInputs:
        connectorID: <+connector.identifier>
        durationInMin: 10
        queryType: v2
        queries:
          - name: errorRate
            dataSource: apm_metrics
            params:
              env: <+probe.variables.ENV>
              service: <+probe.variables.SERVICE_NAME>
              stat: error_rate
        formula: errorRate*100
        aggregation: mean
    runProperties:
      timeout: 30s
      interval: 5s
      attempt: 1
      pollingInterval: 30s
      initialDelay: 1s
      stopOnFailure: false
      verbosity: debug

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Next steps

• Go to Datadog P95 Latency Check to validate latency.
• Go to Datadog APM Probe Templates to browse all Datadog probe templates.