Having Trouble Figuring out layout/design for Initial Cluster Bootstrapping

[jseiser]

I have alot of experience managing Flux cluster, but we have a new environment where ArgoCD was the request.

Im having a ton of trouble finding.. clear guidance on a normal repo structure. This is currently once cluster, but will grow into more. A Cluster may be qa and prod or just one or the other. This repo is strictly for infrastructure resources on these clusters, end-user deployments would come form a different repo.

The main issue im having is around, how to handle dissimilar parts of an Application

In Flux, I would define kustomize that would

1. Install the Cert Manager CRD's
2. Install the Helm Chart using the HelmController
3. Create all the Cluster issuers etc.

If I needed to make one cluster have 2 more Cluster issuers than another, its just adding a overlay for that cluster and moving on. Im having issues wrapping my head around the expected ArgoCD way of doing this.

I currently have this

Layout

.
├── appsets
│   ├── 00-cluster-crds.yaml
│   └── 01-cluster-apps.yaml
├── cluster-apps
│   ├── cert-manager
│   │   ├── appset.yaml
│   │   ├── base
│   │   │   └── values.yaml
│   │   └── clusters
│   │       └── narmer-demo-alpha
│   │           └── values.yaml
│   ├── external-secrets
│   │   ├── appset.yaml
│   │   ├── base
│   │   │   ├── kustomization.yaml
│   │   │   ├── ssm-secretstore.yaml
│   │   │   └── values.yaml
│   │   └── clusters
│   │       └── narmer-demo-alpha
│   │           ├── kustomization.yaml
│   │           └── values.yaml
│   ├── karpenter
│   │   ├── appset.yaml
│   │   ├── base
│   │   │   ├── kustomization.yaml
│   │   │   ├── nodeclass.yaml
│   │   │   └── nodepool.yaml
│   │   └── clusters
│   │       └── narmer-demo-alpha
│   │           ├── kustomization.yaml
│   │           └── nodeclass.yaml
│   └── trust-manager
│       ├── appset.yaml
│       ├── base
│       │   └── values.yaml
│       └── clusters
│           └── narmer-demo-alpha
│               └── values.yaml
├── README.md
└── root-application.yaml

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: platform-services-root
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: platform-services
  source:
    repoURL: https://gitab.something.com/something/the_platform/platform_services.git
    targetRevision: develop
    path: appsets
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: argocd
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true

Which picks up an app set

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
metadata:
  name: 01-cluster-apps
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  generators:
    - git:
        repoURL: https://gitab.something.com/something/the_platform/platform_services.git
        revision: develop
        directories:
          - path: cluster-apps/*

  template:
    metadata:
      name: '{{path.basename}}'
    spec:
      project: default
      source:
        repoURL: https://gitab.something.com/something/the_platform/platform_services.git
        targetRevision: develop
        path: '{{path}}'
      destination:
        server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
        namespace: argocd
      syncPolicy:
        automated:
          prune: true
          selfHeal: true

Which loops through application sets

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
metadata:
  name: cert-manager-cluster
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  goTemplate: true

  generators:
    - clusters:
        selector:
          matchLabels:
            workload: "platform"
  template:
    metadata:
      name: "{{.name}}-cert-manager"

    spec:
      project: platform-services

      sources:
        - repoURL: https://charts.jetstack.io
          chart: cert-manager
          targetRevision: 1.20.0
          helm:
            valueFiles:
              - $values/cluster-apps/cert-manager/base/values.yaml
              - $values/cluster-apps/cert-manager/clusters/{{.name}}/values.yaml

        - repoURL: https://gitab.something.com/something/the_platform/platform_services.git
          targetRevision: develop
          ref: values

        - repoURL: https://gitab.something.com/something/the_platform/platform_services.git
          targetRevision: develop
          path: cluster-apps/cert-manager/clusters/{{.name}}

      destination:
        server: '{{.server}}'
        namespace: cert-manager
      syncPolicy:
        syncOptions:
          - CreateNamespace=true
          - ServerSideApply=true
        automated:
          prune: true
          selfHeal: true

This looks incredibly messy in the UI. With apps that deploys apps that deploys Applications. I also read you should not have multiple sources defined.. So can anyone please offer some guidance to get back on track?

im much more used to just definine kustomizations, and being able to reference raw manifests and helm charts without this additional abstraction so I know im definitely doing something wrong.