Helm Charts

Overview

Helm scaffolds a standard chart structure with a single command.

Creating a chart

helm create my-app

Creating my-app

tree my-app

my-app
├── charts
├── Chart.yaml
├── templates
│   ├── deployment.yaml
│   ├── _helpers.tpl
│   ├── hpa.yaml
│   ├── httproute.yaml
│   ├── ingress.yaml
│   ├── NOTES.txt
│   ├── serviceaccount.yaml
│   ├── service.yaml
│   └── tests
│       └── test-connection.yaml
└── values.yaml

4 directories, 11 files

How the pieces fit together

You edit values.yaml almost exclusively. That’s the whole point — the templates read from values.yaml, so you change the values and the templates generate the right YAML for you.

Chart.yaml you touch once to set the name and description, then basically never again unless you bump the version.

The templates work as-is for 95%+ of standard web app deployments. The scaffold covers deployment, service, ingress, service account, and HPA — exactly what a website needs. You only touch a template if you need something the defaults don’t support: adding a second container, mounting a config file, or adding a custom annotation that isn’t passed through from values.

The workflow: edit Chart.yaml once, then live in values.yaml and your per-environment values files from that point on.