What does this PR do?

• Reverts [AGENTONB-1702] Early exit if no credentials despite controllers requiring them #2387
• Removes early exit behavior for the datadogMonitor

Motivation

• Align behavior among the credentials-dependent controllers so that the operator pod does not crash upon initial install and credentials are unavailable.
• Provide better user experience for first-time datadog chart users who might otherwise see the operator pod in CrashLoopBackoff due to credentials not being immediately available.

Additional Notes

Anything else we should know when reviewing?

Minimum Agent Versions

Are there minimum versions of the Datadog Agent and/or Cluster Agent required?

• Agent: vX.Y.Z
• Cluster Agent: vX.Y.Z

Describe your test plan

Reproducing the bug:

1. First, uninstall any existing helm releases of the datadog chart from your local kind cluster. Then, install the datadog chart v3.163.1 with minimal values:

datadog:
  apiKeyExistingSecret: datadog-secret
  appKeyExistingSecret: datadog-secret
  kubelet:
    tlsVerify: false

2. Observe that the operator pod immediately crashes with CrashLoopBackOff. In the Operator logs, you'll see
   errors about missing credentials for the datadogSLO and datadogGenericResource controllers:

{"level":"ERROR","ts":"2026-01-27T21:18:23.133Z","logger":"setup","msg":"Couldn't start controller","controller":"DatadogSLO","error":"error obtaining API key and/or app key","stacktrace":"github.com/DataDog/datadog-operator/internal/controller.SetupControllers\n\t/workspace/internal/controller/setup.go:100\nmain.run\n\t/workspace/cmd/main.go:387\nmain.main\n\t/workspace/cmd/main.go:205\nruntime.main\n\t/usr/local/go/src/runtime/proc.go:285"}
{"level":"ERROR","ts":"2026-01-27T21:18:23.134Z","logger":"setup","msg":"Couldn't start controller","controller":"DatadogGenericResource","error":"error obtaining API key and/or app key","stacktrace":"github.com/DataDog/datadog-operator/internal/controller.SetupControllers\n\t/workspace/internal/controller/setup.go:100\nmain.run\n\t/workspace/cmd/main.go:387\nmain.main\n\t/workspace/cmd/main.go:205\nruntime.main\n\t/usr/local/go/src/runtime/proc.go:285"}

4. Check the operator deployment YAML. It'll be expected that the DD_API_KEY and DD_APP_KEY env vars are not set. Perform a helm upgrade, and check the operator deployment again. The env vars should now be present and the operator pod should stop crashing.

QA'ing the changes:

5. Build custom operator image based off of this branch.
6. Uninstall datadog chart and install the latest datadog chart version (3.164.0+) with these operator.* overrides:

operator:
  image:
    repository: <your_dockerhub>
    tag: <custom_tag>
    doNotCheckTag: true

  datadogMonitor:
    enabled: true
  datadogDashboard:
    enabled: true
  datadogGenericResource:
    enabled: true
  datadogSLO:
    enabled: true

  datadogCRDs:
    crds:
      datadogMonitors: true
      datadogSLOs: true
      datadogDashboards: true
      datadogGenericResources: true

7. The operator pod should become ready and not crash. Check the operator pod logs and there should be errors informing you of required credentials:

{"level":"ERROR","ts":"2026-01-27T21:46:02.805Z","logger":"setup","msg":"Couldn't start controller","controller":"DatadogMonitor","error":"error obtaining API key and/or app key","stacktrace":"github.com/DataDog/datadog-operator/internal/controller.SetupControllers\n\t/workspace/internal/controller/setup.go:100\nmain.run\n\t/workspace/cmd/main.go:387\nmain.main\n\t/workspace/cmd/main.go:205\nruntime.main\n\t/usr/local/go/src/runtime/proc.go:285"}

8. Perform a helm upgrade. Those errors should not be present in the new operator pod and the operator deployment YAML should have the API/APP key env vars present.
9. Deploy example manifests from the examples folder and they should work as normal.

Checklist

• PR has at least one valid label: bug, enhancement, refactoring, documentation, tooling, and/or dependencies
• PR has a milestone or the qa/skip-qa label
• All commits are signed (see: signing commits)