Why Helmfile?

Why do we need helmfile?

One of them is that when we want to override values from a values.yaml file we need to compose a specific command. To the helm upgrade command we need to add the --values flag followed by a file name. This is called an imperative approach because to get what we want (install the application) we need to execute several steps. Like in our example, first we need to add a Helm repository (for PostgreSQL), and then install the back-end and front-end Services. Relatively simple, but only for now. In the real world, in large distributed systems, we have to deal with hundreds of applications, so this approach might not scale that well.

Let’s imagine a situation in which we are working on such a system with hundreds of software engineers. And now we need to add a new Service to this already complex system. How would we do that? Sure, we would need to prepare a Helm chart for that, but how do we deploy it? Of course, we could ask around and probably after a couple of hours we would get to the right person who would say that the ...