Declaratively deploy your Kubernetes manifests, Kustomize configs, and Charts as Helm releases in one shot
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yxxhero b17c5be9cf Fix 2337 helm4 stale repo indexes (#2369)
* fix: add --force-update flag for Helm 4 to prevent stale repository indexes

Fixes #2337

Problem:
Helmfile with Helm v4 doesn't update repository indexes when adding repos,
leading to stale indexes and errors like:
  "chart matching version not found in example index. (try 'helm repo update')"

This happens because Helm 4 changed behavior compared to Helm 3:
- Helm 3: Always downloads index when running "helm repo add", even if repo exists
- Helm 4: Skips downloading index if repo already exists with same config
  (see: https://github.com/helm/helm/blob/v4.0.4/pkg/cmd/repo_add.go#L200)

Without --force-update, helmfile only works initially because Helm 4
downloads index on fresh repo setup, but subsequent "helmfile repos"
commands result in stale indexes.

Root Cause:
The code only added --force-update for Helm 3.3.2+, but not for Helm 4,
since it was believed to be default behavior in Helm 4. However, Helm 4
requires explicit --force-update flag to update indexes for existing repos.

Solution:
Add --force-update flag for Helm 4 in AddRepo function to ensure
repository indexes are updated even when repository already exists.

Refactoring:
Simplified the conditional logic from nested if statements to a single
readable condition using existing IsVersionAtLeast() helper:
  if !helm.options.DisableForceUpdate &&
     (helm.IsHelm4() || helm.IsVersionAtLeast("3.3.2")) {
    args = append(args, "--force-update")
  }

Changes:
- pkg/helmexec/exec.go: Add --force-update for Helm 4
- pkg/helmexec/exec_test.go: Update test expectations for both Helm 3.3.2+ and Helm 4
- AGENTS.md: Add development guide for the repository

Testing:
- All helmexec package tests pass
- Verified build succeeds
- Tested against Helm 3.2.0 (no force-update)
- Tested against Helm 3.3.2+ (with force-update)
- Tested against Helm 4.0.1 (with force-update)

Signed-off-by: opencode <opencode@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: yxxhero <aiopsclub@163.com>

* test: update expected output for Helm 4 repo add message

Update integration test expectations to match Helm 4 behavior with --force-update flag.
When --force-update is used, Helm 4 now outputs "has been added to your
repositories" instead of "already exists with the same configuration, skipping",
because it forcibly updates the repository index.

Related to #2337

Signed-off-by: opencode <opencode@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: yxxhero <aiopsclub@163.com>

---------

Signed-off-by: opencode <opencode@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: yxxhero <aiopsclub@163.com>
2026-01-25 18:15:20 +08:00
.github fix: update Helm version to v4.0.5 across workflows and configurations (#2368) 2026-01-18 15:25:09 +08:00
cmd Add --sequential-helmfiles flag for optional sequential processing (#2350) 2026-01-08 14:28:25 -05:00
docs Add --sequential-helmfiles flag for optional sequential processing (#2350) 2026-01-08 14:28:25 -05:00
examples feat: add Helm 4 support while maintaining Helm 3 compatibility (#2262) 2025-11-19 07:49:30 +08:00
hack release: fix hack/semtag when there are one or more git remotes before `origin` 2019-01-22 01:29:28 +09:00
logo Add logo as .png and .ai (Adobe Illustrator) files (#263) 2022-08-24 07:37:52 +09:00
pkg Fix 2337 helm4 stale repo indexes (#2369) 2026-01-25 18:15:20 +08:00
test Fix 2337 helm4 stale repo indexes (#2369) 2026-01-25 18:15:20 +08:00
.dockerignore rework dockerfiles (#519) 2022-11-25 10:14:27 +09:00
.editorconfig Improve capitalization and formats of README.md. (#1545) 2020-10-19 08:47:19 +09:00
.gitignore feat: add duration to failed releases summary (#1066) 2023-10-12 18:49:07 -05:00
.golangci.yaml refactor(filesystem): add CopyDir method and optimize Fetch function (#2111) 2025-07-28 16:10:25 -04:00
.goreleaser.yml feat: add helmfile archive configuration in goreleaser (#2000) 2025-04-19 12:11:39 +08:00
.readthedocs.yaml update python3 version for mkdoc.yaml (#1712) 2024-09-18 07:11:12 +08:00
AGENTS.md Fix 2337 helm4 stale repo indexes (#2369) 2026-01-25 18:15:20 +08:00
CODEOWNERS add zhaque44 in CODEOWNERS (#1711) 2024-09-17 12:23:21 +08:00
CONTRIBUTING.md Misc documentation fixes (#1442) 2024-04-06 07:17:32 +08:00
Dockerfile fix: update Helm version to v4.0.5 across workflows and configurations (#2368) 2026-01-18 15:25:09 +08:00
Dockerfile.debian-stable-slim fix: update Helm version to v4.0.5 across workflows and configurations (#2368) 2026-01-18 15:25:09 +08:00
Dockerfile.ubuntu fix: update Helm version to v4.0.5 across workflows and configurations (#2368) 2026-01-18 15:25:09 +08:00
LICENSE Create LICENSE 2017-11-10 16:07:38 -05:00
Makefile feat: add Helm 4 support while maintaining Helm 3 compatibility (#2262) 2025-11-19 07:49:30 +08:00
README-zh_CN.md docs: add zread badge to README (#2219) 2025-10-13 14:10:00 +08:00
README.md docs(README): add mise alternate installation documentation (#2342) 2025-12-24 08:21:58 +08:00
SECURITY.md Create SECURITY.md (#135) 2022-06-05 17:11:54 +09:00
USERS.md Add RightCapital to USERS.md (#1676) 2024-08-24 05:14:38 +08:00
go.mod build(deps): bump github.com/helmfile/chartify from 0.26.1 to 0.26.2 (#2366) 2026-01-18 07:58:48 +08:00
go.sum build(deps): bump github.com/helmfile/chartify from 0.26.1 to 0.26.2 (#2366) 2026-01-18 07:58:48 +08:00
main.go Make helmfile respect signals send by kill command (not only Ctrl+C in terminal) (#750) 2023-04-29 15:25:29 +09:00
mkdocs.yml v1: Document experimental features (#1512) 2024-05-09 10:18:29 +08:00

README.md

Helmfile

Tests Container Image Repository on GHCR Go Report Card Slack Community #helmfile Documentation Gurubase zread

Deploy Kubernetes Helm Charts

English | 简体中文

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 helmfile assuming 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 init once 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

License

MIT

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