Helm Charts

Install and configure third-party software

Helm packages Kubernetes manifests as charts: templated YAML plus a values.yaml of settings, with versioned releases you can upgrade and roll back. It is the common way to install third-party software (ingress controllers, monitoring stacks, databases). For your own apps, Helm or Kustomize both work; Kustomize stays closer to plain YAML, Helm is better when you need to distribute a configurable package. Always pin chart versions and review values.

Installing a chart (sketch)

Typical commands; need a cluster and network access. Not run here.

helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install ingress ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \
  --namespace ingress --create-namespace \
  --version 4.11.3 \
  -f values-prod.yaml
helm history ingress -n ingress
helm rollback ingress 1 -n ingress

Render before installing

Run helm template with your values and read the output; charts can create more (and more privileged) resources than you expect.

Quick check: When is Helm especially useful?

• Building container images
• Writing a single Pod by hand
• Replacing kubectl entirely
• Installing and upgrading configurable third-party software packages