Helm is a tool that automates the creation, packaging, configuration, and deployment of Kubernetes applications by combining your configuration files into a single reusable package.

Install Helm

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pacman -S helm

Concepts

Chart

A Chart is a Helm package. It contains all of the resource definitions necessary to run an application, tool, or service inside of a Kubernetes cluster. Think of it like the Kubernetes equivalent of a Homebrew formula, an Apt dpkg, or a Yum RPM file.

Repository

A Repository is the place where charts can be collected and shared. It’s like Perl’s CPAN archive or the Fedora Package Database, but for Kubernetes packages.

Release

A Release is an instance of a chart running in a Kubernetes cluster. One chart can often be installed many times into the same cluster. And each time it is installed, a new release is created.

Helm Commands

search charts in the Artifact Hub

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helm search hub <chart-name>

search charts in the repositories that you have added to your local helm client

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helm search repo <chart-name>

And new repositories can be added with helm repo add:

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helm repo add <name> <repo-url>

You can see which repositories are configured using helm repo list:

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helm repo list

To install a new package, use the helm install command.

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helm install <release-name> <chart-name>
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helm install --generate-name <chart-name>