Helm Action

Deploys a helm chart using GitHub actions. Supports canary deployments and provides a built in helm chart for apps that listen over http to get your ramped up quickly.

View an example repository using this action at github.com/deliverybot/example-helm.

Parameters

Inputs

Inputs below are additionally loaded from the payload of the deployment event payload if the action was triggered by a deployment.

• release: Helm release name. Will be combined with track if set. (required)
• namespace: Kubernetes namespace name. (required)
• chart: Helm chart path. If set to "app" this will use the built in helm chart found in this repository. (required)
• values: Helm chart values, expected to be a YAML or JSON string.
• track: Track for the deployment. If the track is not "stable" it activates the canary workflow described below.
• task: Task name. If the task is "remove" it will remove the configured helm release.
• dry-run: Helm dry-run option.
• token: Github repository token. If included and the event is a deployment then the deployment_status event will be fired.
• value-files: Additional value files to apply to the helm chart. Expects a JSON encoded array or a string.
• secrets: Secret variables to include in value file interpolation. Expects a JSON encoded map.
• helm: Helm binary to execute, one of: [helm, helm3].
• version: Version of the app, usually commit sha works here.

Additional parameters: If the action is being triggered by a deployment event and the task parameter in the deployment event is set to "remove" then this action will execute a helm delete $service

Versions

• helm: v2.14.3
• helm3: v3.0.0-beta.3

Environment

• KUBECONFIG_FILE: Kubeconfig file for Kubernetes cluster access.

Value file interpolation

The following syntax allows variables to be used in value files:

• ${{ secrets.KEY }}: References secret variables passed in the secrets input.
• ${{ deployment }}: References the deployment event that triggered this action.

Example

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy
on: ['deployment']

jobs:
  deployment:
    runs-on: 'ubuntu-latest'
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: 'Deploy'
      uses: 'deliverybot/helm@v1'
      with:
        release: 'nginx'
        namespace: 'default'
        chart: 'app'
        token: '${{ github.token }}'
        values: |
          name: foobar
      env:
        KUBECONFIG_FILE: '${{ secrets.KUBECONFIG }}'

Example canary

If a track is chosen that is equal to canary, this updates the helm chart in a few ways:

1. Release name is changed to {release}-{track} (eg. myapp-canary).
2. The service is disabled on the helm chart service.enabled=false
3. The ingress is disabled on the helm chart ingress.enabled=false

Not enabling the service or ingress allows the stable ingress and service resources to pick up the canary pods and route traffic to them.

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy
on: ['deployment']

jobs:
  deployment:
    runs-on: 'ubuntu-latest'
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: 'Deploy'
      uses: 'deliverybot/helm@v1'
      with:
        release: 'nginx'
        track: canary
        namespace: 'default'
        chart: 'app'
        token: '${{ github.token }}'
        values: |
          name: foobar
      env:
        KUBECONFIG_FILE: '${{ secrets.KUBECONFIG }}'