Create an agent policy without using the UI

For use cases where you want to provide a default agent policy or support automation, you can set up an agent policy without using the Fleet UI. To do this, either use the Fleet API or add a preconfigured policy to Kibana:

Option 1. Create an agent policy with the API

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curl -u <username>:<password> --request POST \
  --url <kibana_url>/api/fleet/agent_policies?sys_monitoring=true \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'kbn-xsrf: true' \
  --data '{"name":"Agent policy 1","namespace":"default","monitoring_enabled":["logs","metrics"]}'

In this API call:

sys_monitoring=true adds the system integration to the agent policy
monitoring_enabled turns on Elastic Agent monitoring

For more information, refer to Kibana Fleet APIs.

Option 2. Create agent policies with preconfiguration

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Add preconfigured policies to kibana.yml config.

For example, the following example adds a Fleet Server policy for self-managed setup:

xpack.fleet.packages:
  - name: fleet_server
    version: latest
xpack.fleet.agentPolicies:
  - name: Fleet Server policy
    id: fleet-server-policy
    namespace: default
    package_policies:
      - name: fleet_server-1
        package:
          name: fleet_server

The following example creates an agent policy for general use, and customizes the period setting for the system.core data stream. You can find all available inputs and variables in the Integrations app in Kibana.

xpack.fleet.packages:
  - name: system
    version: latest
  - name: elastic_agent
    version: latest
xpack.fleet.agentPolicies:
  - name: Agent policy 1
    id: agent-policy-1
    namespace: default
    monitoring_enabled:
      - logs
      - metrics
    package_policies:
      - package:
          name: system
        name: System Integration 1
        id: preconfigured-system-1
        inputs:
          system-system/metrics:
            enabled: true
            vars:
              '[system.hostfs]': home/test
            streams:
              '[system.core]':
                enabled: true
                vars:
                  period: 20s
          system-winlog:
            enabled: false

For more information about preconfiguration settings, refer to the Kibana documentation.

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