# Configure agents

You can change the default agents configuration in the `datalore.values.yaml` file.

Procedure: Configure agents

1. Specify configuration parameters for your agents.

Under the `agentsConfig` key, fill in the fields to define agent types (such as Basic and Large machines in the cloud version of Datalore). It has the following schema:

```YAML
agentsConfig:
  k8s:
    namespace: <(Optional) namespace identifier>
    instances:
      - id: <Any string used as a unique identifier of this particular instance>
        default: <Whether this instance is used by default>
        label: <Instance name>
        yaml:
          <Kubernetes config of Pod to be used for the instance>
        initialPoolSize: <(Optional) Number of pre-warmed agents to keep>
      - id: <Another type with the same schema as above>
        ...
```

If you have Datalore installed in a namespace other than `default`, you must specify it under the `namespace` field.

Each instance definition has the following fields:

| Mandatory fields |
| --- |
| `id: basic-agent` | Specifies the unique id for the instance. |
| `default: true` | Specifies whether the instance is default. Make sure exactly one instance has this parameter set to `true`. |
| `label: "k8s-base"` | Specifies the instance name shown in the UI. |
| `yaml: "yaml code here"` | Valid kubernetes pod spec YAML, describing a Datalore agent. See an example below. |
| Optional fields |
| `initialPoolSize: 1` |  Specifies the number of pre-warmed (pooled) agents. This is the minimum number of agents Datalore will keep started and yet unassigned to any computation. When a notebook is opened, Datalore assigns one of the pooled agents to that notebook and starts another agent to refill the pool. It might be useful to set `initialPoolSize` to a non-zero value if initialization of your agents takes a lot of time.  |
|    > **Note:** > Options below are only used to adjust UI appearance, not to specify agent properties. To actually set limits for an agent, use the `cpus` and `memory` fields.   |
| `shortName: "S"` |    Specifies the short instance name.     If it contains more than three letters, only the first three are displayed.    |
| `numCPUs: 2` | Specifies the number of CPUs to display. |
| `cpuMemoryText: "8 GB"` | Specifies the agent RAM description. |
| `numGPUs: 1` | Specifies the number of GPUs to display. |
| `gpuMemoryText: "4 GB"` | Specifies the GPU memory description. |
|     ```YAML features:   - "1 vCPU"   - "16 GB RAM"   - "1 NVIDIA GPU" ```    |    Specifies specific properties of this agent to display in the UI.     Only properties containing the "RAM", "CPU", or "GPU" substrings will be displayed in the agent selection window.    |

The example below shows what a default Datalore agent YAML looks like.

> **Note:**
> The example below references the `env` block, which is used to define environment variables for the notebook runtime.
>
>
>
> There are some environment variables, which may control the agent control plane behavior. See [agent configuration variables](server-configuration.html#agent_configuration) for more details.

```YAML
agentsConfig:
  k8s:
    instances:
      - id: basic-agent
        ...
        yaml:
          apiVersion: v1
          kind: Pod
          metadata:
            name: k8s-agent
            labels:
              podType: dataloreKubernetesAgent
          spec:
            enableServiceLinks: false
            containers:
              - name: agent
                image: jetbrains/datalore-agent:2026.3
                securityContext:
                  privileged: true
                env:
                  - name: MAX_HEAP_SIZE
                    value: 512m
                resources:
                  limits:
                    cpu: "1"
                    memory: "2048Mi"
                  requests:
                    cpu: "200m"
                    memory: "2048Mi"
```

2. (Optional) Configure collecting logs from Datalore and agents.

We provide the default logging configuration, which prints requested information to `stdout`, but you can customize it under the `logbackConfig` key. Find more information on how to configure Logback in the [official documentation](http://logback.qos.ch/manual/configuration.html).

## Configure external agents

The procedure above is also applicable for configuring external agents. For more details, refer to [this topic](external-agents.html).