Configure Operator environment variables

You can configure the Percona Operator for MongoDB by setting environment variables in the Operator Deployment. This lets you tune logging, scope the namespaces that are watched, and adjust reconciliation behavior without rebuilding images.

You can set environment variables in the following ways:

• For installations via kubectl, edit the Operator Deployment manifest (deploy/operator.yaml) before applying it, or modify the existing Deployment using kubectl patch or kubectl edit.
• For Helm installations, set environment variables through Helm values.
• For installations on OpenShift, configure environment variables through the OLM subscription.

Available environment variables

LOG_STRUCTURED

Controls whether Operator logs are structured (JSON) or plain text.

Value type	Default	Example
string	"false"	"true"

Example configuration:

env:
  - name: LOG_STRUCTURED
    value: "true"

LOG_LEVEL

Sets the verbosity level of Operator logs.

Value type	Default	Example
string	"INFO"	"DEBUG"

Valid values are:

• “DEBUG” - Most verbose, includes detailed debugging information
• “INFO” - Standard informational messages (default)
• “WARN” - Warning messages only
• “ERROR” - Error messages only

Example configuration:

env:
  - name: LOG_LEVEL
    value: "DEBUG"

WATCH_NAMESPACE

Specifies which namespaces the Operator watches for Custom Resources.

Value type	Default	Example
string	Operator namespace	"psmdb,psmdb-prod" or ""

Notes:

• A comma-separated list limits the Operator to those namespaces.
• An empty string ("") enables cluster-wide mode (watch all namespaces).

Example configuration for multi-namespace mode:

env:
  - name: WATCH_NAMESPACE
    value: "psmdb,psmdb-prod"

DISABLE_TELEMETRY

Disables telemetry data collection.

Value type	Default	Example
string	"false"	"true"

Example configuration:

env:
  - name: DISABLE_TELEMETRY
    value: "true"

RECONCILE_INTERVAL

Controls how long the Operator waits before re-queuing reconciliation for a cluster after a reconcile loop completes (available since Operator 1.23.0).

Value type	Default	Example
duration string	"5s"	"30s" or "1m"

Notes:

• The value must be a Go duration string (for example, 30s, 1m, 5m).
• The minimum allowed value is 5s. Values below 5s, zero, negative, or unparseable values fall back to 5s. The Operator logs a message when it rejects a value.
• Increasing the interval reduces the number of Kubernetes API requests the Operator generates. The default of 5s can produce a high request rate in large deployments.

Example configuration:

env:
  - name: RECONCILE_INTERVAL
    value: "30s"

MAX_CONCURRENT_RECONCILES

Controls the maximum number of concurrent reconciliation operations.

Value type	Default	Example
string	"1"	"3"

Example configuration:

env:
  - name: MAX_CONCURRENT_RECONCILES
    value: "3"

Automatic environment variables

The following values are set by Kubernetes or the deployment manifest and should not be changed:

• POD_NAME - Set from metadata.name.
• OPERATOR_NAME - Set to percona-server-mongodb-operator.

Update environment variables

Using kubectl patch

To update environment variables and keep the existing ones, use the full env list in your patch:

kubectl patch deployment percona-server-mongodb-operator \
  -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"containers":[{"name":"percona-server-mongodb-operator","env":[
    {"name":"POD_NAME","valueFrom":{"fieldRef":{"fieldPath":"metadata.name"}}},
    {"name":"OPERATOR_NAME","value":"percona-server-mongodb-operator"},
    {"name":"LOG_LEVEL","value":"DEBUG"}
  ]}}]}}}'

Using kubectl edit

kubectl edit deployment percona-server-mongodb-operator

Then update the env section in the container specification.

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Last update: July 20, 2026
Created: July 20, 2026