Ankit
1341fd8659
* fix: skip chartification when chart renders zero resources
When a chart's templates render zero resources (e.g. everything is
gated behind a falsy `{{- if .Values.enabled }}`) and the release has
transformers, jsonPatches, or strategicMergePatches configured,
helmfile crashed with:
assertion failed: unexpected dir entry "" it must be the abs path
to the output directory
Root cause: chartify's replace.go runs `helm template --output-dir`
and expects exactly one directory entry under that output dir (the
rendered chart). When helm renders no resources, the output dir is
empty, so chartOutputDir stays "" and chartify's own assertion on it
being an absolute path fails. chartify (v0.28.0) doesn't expose a
typed/sentinel error for this, only the assertion text.
Since there's nothing to chartify when a release has no rendered
resources, treat this specific chartify failure as a no-op: keep
using the chart as-is and let helm template it normally (producing
the same empty output helm would have produced without chartify).
Any other chartify error is still surfaced unchanged.
Verified manually end-to-end with a real helm+kustomize:
- a chart with `enabled: false` + a transformer now runs without
error instead of crashing
- a chart with `enabled: true` + the same transformer still gets
transformed correctly (annotations applied), confirming the normal
chartify path is untouched
Added unit tests for the new error-matching helper in
pkg/state/issue_1757_test.go.
Fixes #1757
Signed-off-by: ankit090701 <ankitanku090701@gmail.com>
* fix: return original chart path from empty-render no-op, not the deps-rewrite temp copy
Review feedback on the original fix (#2724) found a real bug: the
empty-render no-op path returned chartPath after it may have already
been reassigned to the temp copy created by rewriteChartDependencies
(for charts with relative file:// deps). That temp dir is removed by
a deferred cleanupTempChart() as soon as processChartification
returns, so the caller was handed a path to a directory that no
longer existed, breaking any subsequent helm command with "chart not
found" - narrow (only local charts with relative file:// deps that
also render zero resources) but real and reproducible.
Capture originalChartPath before the rewrite and return that instead.
Also flatten the nested `if err != nil { if isChartifyEmptyRenderOutputError...`
into two sequential checks per review, and link the upstream tracking
issue (helmfile/chartify#206, opened by a maintainer during review) in
the error-matching constant's doc comment.
Added TestProcessChartification_EmptyRenderReturnsSurvivingPath, an
end-to-end test exercising the real processChartification ->
chartify.Chartify wiring (not just the isChartifyEmptyRenderOutputError
helper) with a chart that has a relative file:// dependency and renders
zero resources - the exact conditions that trigger the bug. Verified
passing against real helm+kustomize in a Linux container; skipped on
Windows due to an unrelated, pre-existing Windows path-handling issue
in chartify's dependency resolution (a drive letter embedded in a
file:// URL gets mis-joined), independent of the code path under test.
Signed-off-by: ankit090701 <ankitanku090701@gmail.com>
* fix: narrow chartify empty-render error match to avoid false positives
Per Copilot's automated review on this PR: the previous substring,
"it must be the abs path to the output directory", matches chartify's
assertion regardless of what chartOutputDir actually is. In the real
empty-render case chartOutputDir is "" (formatted via %q as `""`), but
the same assertion (chartify replace.go:151) would also fire if
chartOutputDir were ever a non-empty-but-still-relative path - a
different, genuine bug that should be surfaced as an error, not
silently treated as an empty-render no-op.
Narrow the match to include the `unexpected dir entry ""` prefix, so
it can only match the exact empty-string case. Verified against the
actual chartify v0.28.0 source (fmt.Errorf with %q on chartOutputDir)
that this is precisely what the empty-render case produces.
Added a test case asserting the same assertion text with a non-empty
dir entry is correctly NOT treated as the empty-render case. Re-ran
the full test suite (including the real helm+kustomize end-to-end
integration test) in a Linux container to confirm the narrower match
still catches the actual reported bug.
Signed-off-by: ankit090701 <ankitanku090701@gmail.com>
---------
Signed-off-by: ankit090701 <ankitanku090701@gmail.com>
Helmfile
Deploy Kubernetes Helm Charts
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About
Helmfile is a declarative spec for deploying helm charts. It lets you...
- Keep a directory of chart value files and maintain changes in version control.
- Apply CI/CD to configuration changes.
- Periodically sync to avoid skew in environments.
To avoid upgrades for each iteration of helm, the helmfile executable delegates to helm - as a result, the following must be installed
Highlights
Declarative: Write, version-control, apply the desired state file for visibility and reproducibility.
Modules: Modularize common patterns of your infrastructure, distribute it via Git, S3, etc. to be reused across the entire company (See #648)
Versatility: Manage your cluster consisting of charts, kustomizations, and directories of Kubernetes resources, turning everything to Helm releases (See #673)
Patch: JSON/Strategic-Merge Patch Kubernetes resources before helm-installing, without forking upstream charts (See #673)
Status
May 2025 Update
- Helmfile v1.0 and v1.1 has been released. We recommend upgrading directly to v1.1 if you are still using v0.x.
- If you haven't already upgraded, please go over this v1 proposal here to see a small list of breaking changes.
Installation
1: Binary Installation
download one of releases
2: Package Manager
- Archlinux: install via
pacman -S helmfile - openSUSE: install via
zypper in helmfileassuming you are on Tumbleweed; if you are on Leap you must add the kubic repo for your distribution version once before that command, e.g.zypper ar https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic/openSUSE_Leap_\$releasever kubic - Windows (using scoop):
scoop install helmfile - macOS (using homebrew):
brew install helmfile - Linux/macOS/Windows (using mise):
mise use -g helmfile@latest
3: Container
For more details, see run as a container
Make sure to run
helmfile initonce after installation. Helmfile uses the helm-diff plugin.
4: Build from source
requirements: Go
go install github.com/helmfile/helmfile@latest
Getting Started
Let's start with a simple helmfile and gradually improve it to fit your use-case!
Generate a project scaffold with best-practice directory structure:
helmfile create my-project && cd my-project
Or create a helmfile.yaml manually. Suppose the helmfile.yaml representing the desired state of your helm releases looks like:
repositories:
- name: prometheus-community
url: https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
releases:
- name: prom-norbac-ubuntu
namespace: prometheus
chart: prometheus-community/prometheus
set:
- name: rbac.create
value: false
Sync your Kubernetes cluster state to the desired one by running:
helmfile apply
Congratulations! You now have your first Prometheus deployment running inside your cluster.
Iterate on the helmfile.yaml by referencing:
More complex examples
See: multi-env-helmfile
Docs
Please read complete documentation
Contributing
Welcome to contribute together to make helmfile better: contributing doc
Attribution
We use:
- semtag for automated semver tagging. I greatly appreciate the author(pnikosis)'s effort on creating it and their kindness to share it!
Users
Helmfile has been used by many users in production:
For more users, please see: Users