How to sync the helm chart dir without Chart.yaml

[yidongw]

helm template or helmfile template will generate directories and charts without Chart.yaml

for example
helmfile template --output-dir-template $(pwd)/gitops//{{.Release.Namespace}}
will generate the following directories structure.

gitops/traefik/
└── traefik
    └── templates
        ├── dashboard-hook-ingressroute.yaml
        ├── deployment.yaml
        ├── rbac
        │   ├── clusterrole.yaml
        │   ├── clusterrolebinding.yaml
        │   └── serviceaccount.yaml
        └── service.yaml

3 directories, 6 files

there is no Chart.yaml

So when I create an application chart like this

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: traefik
  finalizers:
  - resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: traefik
  project: default
  source:
    path: gitops/traefik/traefik/
    repoURL: git@gitlab.com:org/me/helm-charts.git
    targetRevision: HEAD
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true

traefik will not be properly installed.

I have been googling around and trying to find the answer but I couldn't find it.

Can argocd support installing the sub-charts without Chart.yaml? Or do I have to manually create that one by one?

[kostis-codefresh]

Argo CD needs the Chart.yaml in order to understand the presence of a Helm chart.

The solution is to not use Helm file and simply point directly Argo CD to your original Helm charts using ApplicationSets for any templating required.

[nh4ttruong]

Hi @kostis-codefresh, is it possible to skip rendering the Chart.yaml file to temporarily ignore the ApplicationSet chart folder?

In my case, I use both a Kustomize and a Helm folder with ApplicationSets. ArgoCD ends up rendering the Unknown application named kafka (type=helm) with an error:

Failed to load target state: failed to generate manifest for source 1 of 2: rpc error: code = Unknown desc = Manifest generation error (cached): error getting helm repos: error retrieving helm dependency repos: error reading helm chart from <path to cached source>/applications/keycloak/charts/hub/Chart.yaml: open <path to cached source>/applications/keycloak/charts/hub/Chart.yaml: no such file or directory

My current appset setup:

applications
├── kafka
│   ├── charts
│   │   └── hub
│   │       └── Chart.yaml
│   └── values
│       ├── common.yaml
│       └── hub
│           └── values.yaml

I tried to figure out how to ignore them, but it seems there’s no support for that.

[kostis-codefresh]

Sorry but I don't understand what you are trying to do.

As I linked in the documentation above, Argo CD detects Helm charts by the presence of Chart.yaml and Kustomize folders by the presence of kustomization files. Applicationsets just generate application entities. They don't process any yaml files on their own. I don't understand what you mean by "ApplicationSet chart folder".

Can you explain a bit your end goal? What are you trying to accomplish?

[nh4ttruong]

Sorry for not being clear. I was trying to make an existing application like kafka be ignored without removing its values files or its dir applications/kafka. My ApplicationSets is set to point to applications/**/charts/**, I tried renaming Chart.yaml to Chart.yaml.tmp to get ArgoCD to ignore the kafka application, but it didn’t work and raised above error

[kostis-codefresh]

Yes. But WHY you want to ignore this particular folder from your applicationset?

If you are trying to distribute different apps to different clusters you need to use the cluster generator and cluster labels.

[nh4ttruong]

Thanks for your response. It's just a minor case where I’d like to ignore a tool or application during development but still keep it archived in the same repository instead of removing or replacing it. I was wondering if it’s possible to skip rendering the Chart.yaml.

I used the cluster generator with a cluster label set to key=value, and everything worked as expected. Thank you so much.