Integrate with Helm

[vincentvdk]

Given that replacing Helm will probably never happen since almost all projects are using it as a way for people to deploy their application on Kubernetes, how would integration with it look like?

It would be nice that you can somehow import or amend a Helm chart and it's resource (example the Redis Helm chart) using Pkl.

Not sure if this is feasible and of Pkl is capable in doing this. I tried with a generated yaml manifest from a Helm chart and convert that into a pkl file but I'm not getting far. So I wonder if other people have looked into this and what their experience is..

[MarkSRobinson]

I actually spent a little time porting a chart over the Pkl. Check it out - https://github.com/MarkSRobinson/nginx-pkl

[vincentvdk]

Yeah, I've done the something similar https://codeberg.org/vincentvdk/kurator-pkg-nextcloud but it has no way of integrating with existing Helm charts

[HT154]

Hi there! This is something we've given some thought to.

We couldn't share details back in August, but we're now happy to share pkl-reader-helm, an external reader for Pkl that can "import" rendered helm chart output directly into Pkl.

Basic usage of the package/reader looks like this:

import "@helm/helm.pkl"
import "@k8s/K8sResource.pkl"

resources: Mapping<String, K8sResource> =
  new helm.Template {
      chart = "path/to/my/chart" // chart repo/name, oci:// URI, or absolute path on disk
      version = "0.1.0"          // chart versions (if using OCI or repo, may be null)
      releaseName = "my-release" // release name to use for the chart templates
      namespace = "my-namespace" // namespace to use for the chart templates (see `helm template --namespace`)
      values = new Dynamic {     // custom values to pass into the helm chart
        image {
          repository = "my-registry.example.com/nginx"
        }
      }
    }.resources

You can use Pkl to construct the values to supply to the chart, and if the chart provides JSON Schema for its values you can even generate Pkl types for it using org.json_schema.contrib.generate. You can also amend the output of the chart in Pkl as needed. See the readme for more information.

If you give this a try, let us know how it works for you!

[vincentvdk]

This is pretty sweet. Will definitely give it a try in the next few days. Thanks!

[pjjw]

this is awesome. thank you.