Helm Controller

The GitOps Toolkit Helm Controller documentation.

The Helm Controller is a Kubernetes operator, allowing one to declaratively manage Helm chart releases with Kubernetes manifests.

The desired state of a Helm release is described through a Kubernetes Custom Resource named HelmRelease. Based on the creation, mutation or removal of a HelmRelease resource in the cluster, Helm actions are performed by the controller.

Features:

  • Watches for HelmRelease objects and generates HelmChart objects
  • Supports HelmChart artifacts produced from HelmRepository and GitRepository sources
  • Fetches artifacts produced by source-controller from HelmChart objects
  • Watches HelmChart objects for revision changes (including semver ranges for charts from HelmRepository sources)
  • Performs automated Helm actions, including Helm tests, rollbacks and uninstalls
  • Offers extensive configuration options for automated remediation (rollback, uninstall, retry) on failed Helm install, upgrade or test actions
  • Runs Helm install/upgrade in a specific order, taking into account the depends-on relationship defined in a set of HelmRelease objects
  • Prunes Helm releases removed from cluster (garbage collection)
  • Reports Helm releases statuses (alerting provided by notification-controller)
  • Built-in Kustomize compatible Helm post renderer, providing support for strategic merge, JSON 6902 and images patches

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