Publishing Charts

To publish your Helm charts using GitHub Pages, you'll need a GitHub account and a new or existing repository where you can store and serve your charts. Here's a detailed step-by-step process to get your Helm charts published using GitHub Pages:

Step 1: Prepare Your GitHub Repository

Create a New Repository: If you don't already have one, create a new GitHub repository. It can be named anything, but something like helm-charts is descriptive and common.

Step 2: Clone Your Repository Locally


cd~
git clone https://github.com/xxxxxx/helm-charts.git
cd helm-charts

Replace <username> with your GitHub username and <repository-name> with the name of your repository.

Step 3: Package Your Helm Chart

Assuming you have your chart directory for instavote ready, move that inside the helm-charts

e.g.

mv instavote helm-charts/
cd helm-charts
git add instavote/
git commit -am "added instavote chart"
git push origin main
git log

helm package instavote
ls

This command will create a .tgz file of your chart.

Step 4: Create or Update the Helm Chart Repository Index

After packaging your chart, create an index file that Helm can use to fetch chart metadata:

helm repo index . --url https://xxxxxx.github.io/helm-charts/

This command generates or updates an index.yaml file with information about charts stored in the directory.

Step 5: Switch to the gh-pages Branch

If the gh-pages branch does not exist, create it and switch to it:

git checkout --orphan gh-pages
git status
git rm -rf instavote README.md

Step 6: Commit and Push Your Changes

git add *.tgz index.yaml
git commit -m "Publish Helm charts"
git push origin gh-pages

Step 7: Ensure GitHub Pages is Set Up Correctly

  • Go to your repository's settings.
  • Find the "Pages" section.
  • Set the source to the gh-pages branch (you may need to create this branch in your repository if it doesn't exist yet).

Step 8: Add Your Repository to Helm

Now that your chart is published, you can add your repository to Helm:

helm repo add instavote https://xxxxxx.github.io/helm-charts/

Step 9: Update Helm Repositories

helm repo list

helm repo update

This will update your local Helm client with the latest charts from your newly published repository.

Step 10: Installing Charts

You and others can now install charts from your repository:

helm search repo  instavote
helm install instavote instavote/instavote

Replace <release-name> with a name for your Helm deployment and <chart-name> with the name of the chart in your repository.

This process sets up a straightforward, cost-effective, and robust method for hosting and managing your Helm charts using GitHub and GitHub Pages.