CLI that creates Helm charts from kubernetes manifests.
Helmify reads a list of supported k8s objects from stdin and converts it to a helm chart. Designed to generate charts for k8s operators but not limited to. See examples of charts generated by helmify.
Supports Helm >=v3.6.0
Submit issue if some features missing for your use-case.
1) As pipe:
```shell
cat my-app.yaml | helmify mychart
```
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from yaml file with k8s objects.
```shell
awk 'FNR==1 && NR!=1 {print "---"}{print}' /<my_directory>/*.yaml | helmify mychart
```
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from all yaml files in <my_directory>directory.
2) From filesystem:
shell
helmify -f /my_directory/my-app.yaml mychart
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from my_directory/my-app.yaml.
shell
helmify -f /my_directory mychart
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from all yaml files in <my_directory>directory.
shell
helmify -f /my_directory -r mychart
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from all yaml files in <my_directory>directory recursively.
shell
helmify -f ./first_dir -f ./second_dir/my_deployment.yaml -f ./third_dir mychart
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from multiple directories and files.
3) From kustomize output:
shell
kustomize build <kustomize_dir> | helmify mychart
Will create 'mychart' directory with Helm chart from kustomize output.
Makefile in your operator project generated by
Operator-SDK or Kubebuilder.Makefile:With operator-sdk version < v1.23.0 ```makefile HELMIFY = $(shell pwd)/bin/helmify helmify: $(call go-get-tool,$(HELMIFY),github.com/arttor/helmify/cmd/helmify@v0.3.7)
helm: manifests kustomize helmify
$(KUSTOMIZE) build config/default | $(HELMIFY)
- With operator-sdk version >= v1.23.0makefile
HELMIFY ?= $(LOCALBIN)/helmify
.PHONY: helmify helmify: $(HELMIFY) ## Download helmify locally if necessary. $(HELMIFY): $(LOCALBIN) test -s $(LOCALBIN)/helmify || GOBIN=$(LOCALBIN) go install github.com/arttor/helmify/cmd/helmify@latest
helm: manifests kustomize helmify
$(KUSTOMIZE) build config/default | $(HELMIFY)
``
3. Runmake helm` in project root. It will generate helm chart with name 'chart' in 'chart' directory.
With Homebrew (for MacOS or Linux): brew install arttor/tap/helmify
Or download suitable for your system binary from the Releases page. Unpack the helmify binary and add it to your PATH and you are good to go!
Helmify takes a chart name for an argument. Usage:
helmify [flags] CHART_NAME - CHART_NAME is optional. Default is 'chart'. Can be a directory, e.g. 'deploy/charts/mychart'.
| flag | description | sample |
|---|---|---|
| -h -help | Prints help | helmify -h |
| -f | File source for k8s manifests (directory or file), multiple sources supported | helmify -f ./test_data |
| -r | Scan file directory recursively. Used only if -f provided | helmify -f ./test_data -r |
| -v | Enable verbose output. Prints WARN and INFO. | helmify -v |
| -vv | Enable very verbose output. Also prints DEBUG. | helmify -vv |
| -version | Print helmify version. | helmify -version |
| -crd-dir | Place crds in their own folder per Helm 3 docs. Caveat: CRDs templating is not supported by Helm. | helmify -crd-dir |
| -image-pull-secrets | Allows the user to use existing secrets as imagePullSecrets | helmify -image-pull-secrets |
| -original-name | Use the object's original name instead of adding the chart's release name as the common prefix. | helmify -original-name |
| -cert-manager-as-subchart | Allows the user to install cert-manager as a subchart | helmify -cert-manager-as-subchart |
| -cert-manager-version | Allows the user to specify cert-manager subchart version. Only useful with cert-manager-as-subchart. (default "v1.12.2") | helmify -cert-manager-version=v1.12.2 |
| -cert-manager-install-crd | Allows the user to install cert-manager CRD as part of the cert-manager subchart.(default "true") | helmify -cert-manager-install-crd |
| -preserve-ns | Allows users to use the object's original namespace instead of adding all the resources to a common namespace. (default "false") | helmify -preserve-ns |
| -add-webhook-option | Adds an option to enable/disable webhook installation | helmify -add-webhook-option |
| -optional-crds | Enable optional CRD installation through values. | helmify -optional-crds |
| ## Status | ||
| Supported k8s resources: | ||
| - Deployment, DaemonSet, StatefulSet | ||
| - Job, CronJob | ||
| - Service, Ingress | ||
| - PersistentVolumeClaim | ||
| - RBAC (ServiceAccount, (cluster-)role, (cluster-)roleBinding) | ||
| - configs (ConfigMap, Secret) | ||
| - webhooks (cert, issuer, ValidatingWebhookConfiguration) | ||
| - custom resource definitions (CRD) |
Chart.yaml file if presented. Done on purpose.-crd-dir flag it is better to delete and regenerate the from scratch to ensure crds are not accidentally spliced/formatted into the same chart. Bear in mind you will want to update your Chart.yaml thereafter.To support a new type of k8s object template:
1. Implement helmify.Processor interface. Place implementation in pkg/processor. The package contains
examples for most k8s objects.
2. Register your processor in the pkg/app/app.go
3. Add relevant input sample to test_data/kustomize.output.
Clone repo and execute command:
cat test_data/k8s-operator-kustomize.output | go run ./cmd/helmify mychart
Will generate mychart Helm chart form file test_data/k8s-operator-kustomize.output representing typical operator
kustomize output.
For manual testing, run program with debug output:
cat test_data/k8s-operator-kustomize.output | go run ./cmd/helmify -vv mychart
Then inspect logs and generated chart in ./mychart directory.
To execute tests, run:
go test ./...
Beside unit-tests, project contains e2e test pkg/app/app_e2e_test.go.
It's a go test, which uses test_data/* to generate a chart in temporary directory.
Then runs helm lint --strict to check if generated chart is valid.
Following rules will help changes to be accepted faster: - For more than one-line bugfixes consider creating an issue with bug description or feature request - For feature request try to think about and cover following topics (when applicable): - Motivation: why feature is needed? Which problem does it solve? What is current workaround? - Backward-compatibility: existing users expect that after upgrading helmify version their existing generated charts wont be changed without consent. - For bugfix PR consider adding example to /test_data source yamls reproducing bug.
Check list before submitting PR:
1. Run go fmt ./...
2. Run tests go test ./...
3. Update chart examples:
shell
cat test_data/sample-app.yaml | go run ./cmd/helmify examples/app
shell
cat test_data/k8s-operator-kustomize.output | go run ./cmd/helmify examples/operator
4. In case of long commit history (more than 3) squash local commits into one
$ claude mcp add helmify \
-- python -m otcore.mcp_server <graph>