Helm Chart Scaffolding
Comprehensive guidance for creating, organizing, and managing Helm charts for packaging and deploying Kubernetes applications.
Purpose
This skill provides step-by-step instructions for building production-ready Helm charts, including chart structure, templating patterns, values management, and validation strategies.
When to Use This Skill
Use this skill when you need to:
- Create new Helm charts from scratch
- Package Kubernetes applications for distribution
- Manage multi-environment deployments with Helm
- Implement templating for reusable Kubernetes manifests
- Set up Helm chart repositories
- Follow Helm best practices and conventions
Detailed patterns and worked examples
Detailed pattern documentation lives in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.
Best Practices
- Use semantic versioning for chart and app versions
- Document all values in values.yaml with comments
- Use template helpers for repeated logic
- Validate charts before packaging
- Pin dependency versions explicitly
- Use conditions for optional resources
- Follow naming conventions (lowercase, hyphens)
- Include NOTES.txt with usage instructions
- Add labels consistently using helpers
- Test installations in all environments
Troubleshooting
Template rendering errors:
helm template my-app ./my-app --debugDependency issues:
helm dependency update
helm dependency listInstallation failures:
helm install my-app ./my-app --dry-run --debug
kubectl get events --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'Related Skills
k8s-manifest-generator- For creating base Kubernetes manifestsgitops-workflow- For automated Helm chart deployments
