Amazon EKS — Helm Deployments

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Helm Deployments

Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes. It bundles YAML manifests into reusable, versioned charts.

Why Helm?

Without Helm With Helm
10+ YAML files per app 1 chart, parameterized
Copy-paste between envs values-dev.yaml, values-prod.yaml
Manual version tracking helm history, helm rollback
No templating Go templates + helpers

Key Concepts

Chart Structure
my-app/
├── Chart.yaml          # Chart metadata (name, version)
├── values.yaml         # Default configuration values
├── templates/
│   ├── deployment.yaml # Deployment template
│   ├── service.yaml    # Service template
│   ├── ingress.yaml    # Ingress template
│   ├── hpa.yaml        # HPA template
│   └── _helpers.tpl    # Template helpers
└── charts/             # Sub-chart dependencies

Common Commands

# Add a chart repo
$ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

# Search for charts
$ helm search repo nginx

# Install a chart
$ helm install my-nginx bitnami/nginx --namespace web --create-namespace

# Install with custom values
$ helm install my-app ./my-chart -f values-prod.yaml

# Upgrade
$ helm upgrade my-app ./my-chart -f values-prod.yaml

# Rollback
$ helm rollback my-app 1

# View history
$ helm history my-app
REVISION    STATUS      DESCRIPTION
1           superseded  Install complete
2           deployed    Upgrade complete

Values Override

# values.yaml (defaults)
replicaCount: 2
image:
  repository: myapp
  tag: latest
resources:
  requests:
    cpu: 100m
    memory: 128Mi

# values-prod.yaml (production overrides)
replicaCount: 5
image:
  tag: v2.1.0
resources:
  requests:
    cpu: 500m
    memory: 512Mi

Common Mistakes

Mistake Impact
Not pinning chart versions Unexpected changes on upgrade
Hardcoding values in templates Can’t reuse across environments
Not using helm diff before upgrade Surprise changes
Storing secrets in values.yaml Security risk

What’s Next?

Git-driven delivery: ArgoCD & GitOps.

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