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

1. Use semantic versioning for chart and app versions
2. Document all values in values.yaml with comments
3. Use template helpers for repeated logic
4. Validate charts before packaging
5. Pin dependency versions explicitly
6. Use conditions for optional resources
7. Follow naming conventions (lowercase, hyphens)
8. Include NOTES.txt with usage instructions
9. Add labels consistently using helpers
10. Test installations in all environments

Troubleshooting

Template rendering errors:

helm template my-app ./my-app --debug

Dependency issues:

helm dependency update
helm dependency list

Installation 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 manifests
• gitops-workflow - For automated Helm chart deployments