Aditya Menon
4f275b3667
This commit adds comprehensive support for Helm 4 while maintaining full backward compatibility with Helm 3. The implementation includes: - Updated helm version detection to support both Helm 3 and Helm 4 - Added HELMFILE_HELM4 environment variable to control Helm version - Modified helm execution paths to handle version-specific binaries - Updated helm plugin installation to support split architecture - Helm 4: Uses split plugin architecture (3 separate .tgz files) - helm-secrets.tgz - helm-secrets-getter.tgz - helm-secrets-post-renderer.tgz - Helm 3: Continues using single plugin installation - Updated Dockerfiles, CI workflows, and core installation code - Helm 4 requires post-renderers to be plugins, not executable scripts - Created Helm plugin structure for integration tests - Updated helmfile.yaml templates to dynamically select renderer type - Added test plugins: add-cm, add-cm1, add-cm2 - Updated integration tests for Helm 3/4 compatibility - Created Helm 4 variant expected output files - Fixed test determinism issues (repo cleanup between iterations) - Added version-specific output filtering for warnings/messages - Updated workflows to test both Helm 3 and Helm 4 - Matrix testing across Helm versions - Updated helm-diff to v3.14.0 for compatibility - Updated README and docs with Helm 4 information - Added migration guidance - Updated version requirements All changes are backward compatible - existing Helm 3 users will see no behavior changes. fix: update Helm 4 lint expected output to match filtered output The grep filter removes the semver warning, so the expected output should not include it. Updated lint-helm4 files to match the filtered output (warning removed, no extra blank line). Signed-off-by: Aditya Menon <amenon@canarytechnologies.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
3: Container
For more details, see run as a container
Make sure to run
helmfile initonce after installation. Helmfile uses the helm-diff plugin.
Getting Started
Let's start with a simple helmfile and gradually improve it to fit your use-case!
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