diff --git a/apps/base/logging/agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml b/apps/base/logging/agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a96ac5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/base/logging/agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+---
+# Confines the agent-observability service account (in vm-system) to the
+# agent-observability ClusterRole within this namespace.
+apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
+kind: RoleBinding
+metadata:
+  name: agent-observability
+  namespace: logging
+subjects:
+  - kind: ServiceAccount
+    name: agent-observability
+    namespace: vm-system
+roleRef:
+  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
+  kind: ClusterRole
+  name: agent-observability
diff --git a/apps/base/logging/kustomization.yaml b/apps/base/logging/kustomization.yaml
index cc3dc17..af2bdc3 100644
--- a/apps/base/logging/kustomization.yaml
+++ b/apps/base/logging/kustomization.yaml
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ resources:
   - configmap_logarchiver.yaml
   - deployment_logarchiver.yaml
   - logviewer
+  - agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml
 
 # Vector pipelines are the single source of truth (also validated by
 # `vector test` in CI). Mounted into each tier via `existingConfigMaps`.
diff --git a/apps/base/observability/agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml b/apps/base/observability/agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bc6faba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/base/observability/agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+---
+# Confines the agent-observability service account (in vm-system) to the
+# agent-observability ClusterRole within this namespace.
+apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
+kind: RoleBinding
+metadata:
+  name: agent-observability
+  namespace: observability
+subjects:
+  - kind: ServiceAccount
+    name: agent-observability
+    namespace: vm-system
+roleRef:
+  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
+  kind: ClusterRole
+  name: agent-observability
diff --git a/apps/base/observability/kustomization.yaml b/apps/base/observability/kustomization.yaml
index 93d5367..1a77cb3 100644
--- a/apps/base/observability/kustomization.yaml
+++ b/apps/base/observability/kustomization.yaml
@@ -13,3 +13,4 @@ resources:
   - httproute.yaml
   - vmpodscrape-cnpg.yaml
   - vmpodscrape-traefik.yaml
+  - agent-observability-rolebinding.yaml
diff --git a/apps/base/vm-system/agent-observability-rbac.yaml b/apps/base/vm-system/agent-observability-rbac.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..da8921e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/base/vm-system/agent-observability-rbac.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+---
+# Static service account that Vault's kubernetes secret engine mints scoped
+# tokens for (agent-observability role). RBAC is confined to the metrics and
+# logging namespaces via the per-namespace RoleBindings, not a
+# ClusterRoleBinding. Workloads and VictoriaMetrics CRs are deliberately
+# patch/update only: deleting a VMCluster or VLCluster destroys data.
+apiVersion: v1
+kind: ServiceAccount
+metadata:
+  name: agent-observability
+  namespace: vm-system
+---
+apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
+kind: ClusterRole
+metadata:
+  name: agent-observability
+rules:
+  - apiGroups: ["operator.victoriametrics.com"]
+    resources: ["*"]
+    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch", "create", "patch", "update"]
+  - apiGroups: ["apps"]
+    resources: ["deployments", "statefulsets", "daemonsets"]
+    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch", "patch", "update"]
+  # delete permits a rolling restart without granting workload deletion.
+  - apiGroups: [""]
+    resources: ["pods"]
+    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch", "delete"]
+  - apiGroups: [""]
+    resources: ["pods/log"]
+    verbs: ["get"]
+  - apiGroups: [""]
+    resources: ["services", "configmaps", "endpoints", "events"]
+    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch"]
+  - apiGroups: ["gateway.networking.k8s.io"]
+    resources: ["gateways", "httproutes"]
+    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch"]
+---
+apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
+kind: RoleBinding
+metadata:
+  name: agent-observability
+  namespace: vm-system
+subjects:
+  - kind: ServiceAccount
+    name: agent-observability
+    namespace: vm-system
+roleRef:
+  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
+  kind: ClusterRole
+  name: agent-observability
diff --git a/apps/base/vm-system/kustomization.yaml b/apps/base/vm-system/kustomization.yaml
index 5122f9e..e775f55 100644
--- a/apps/base/vm-system/kustomization.yaml
+++ b/apps/base/vm-system/kustomization.yaml
@@ -4,3 +4,4 @@ kind: Kustomization
 
 resources:
   - namespace.yaml
+  - agent-observability-rbac.yaml