make-argocd-fly

✈️ make-argocd-fly

A powerful tool for generating ArgoCD Applications and their rendered Kubernetes resources from Helm, Kustomize, and Jinja2 — across multiple environments, at scale.

🔧 What It Does

make-argocd-fly lets you:

• Render Helm charts and Kustomize overlays into plain Kubernetes manifests, so you know exactly what will be deployed
• Add Jinja2-based templating for reusable parametrization
• Automatically generate ArgoCD Application resources
• Organize applications into a well-defined directory structure
• Define multiple environments and control what gets deployed where

Think of it as a static GitOps generator for Kubernetes — rendering, organizing, and wiring your apps for ArgoCD.

🧩 The Rendered Manifest Pattern

The Kubernetes GitOps community recently introduced the Rendered Manifest Pattern as a best practice for managing applications with ArgoCD.

Instead of letting ArgoCD invoke Helm or Kustomize internally, you pre-render manifests outside the cluster and commit only plain YAML to Git. This makes your Git repo the single source of truth for the exact Kubernetes resources being deployed.

Why this matters

When ArgoCD runs Helm or Kustomize directly, you may hit problems like:

• Version drift – different clusters use different plugin versions and render inconsistently
• Debugging blind spots – failures happen inside ArgoCD, with no access to the rendered YAML
• Unreviewable diffs – Git diffs show template changes, not the actual manifests applied
• Limited portability – CI/CD, linters, and policy tools can’t easily check resources
• Operational surprises – subtle plugin/env differences lead to unexpected drift

With pre-rendered manifests you gain:

• Single source of truth – Git shows exactly what ArgoCD applies
• Deterministic builds – no hidden differences across environments
• Transparent reviews – PR diffs show actual Kubernetes changes
• Pluggable checks – run linters and security scanners on YAML in CI
• Simpler ops – ArgoCD only syncs plain YAML, reducing complexity

make-argocd-fly is a practical implementation of the Rendered Manifest Pattern. It automates rendering of Helm charts, Kustomize overlays, and Jinja2 templates, organizes them by environment, and generates ArgoCD Application resources pointing to the rendered output.

💡 Key Features

• ✅ Helm rendering Render Helm charts into raw manifests.

• ✅ Kustomize overlays Render Kustomize overlays into fully resolved Kubernetes manifests. See the full, flattened configuration before deployment.

• ✅ Jinja2 templating Use variables, logic, and partials to build composable app definitions.

• ✅ Multi-environment support Define once and deploy to multiple environments (e.g. dev, staging, prod) with clean separation of concerns.

• ✅ ArgoCD Application generation Automatically generate Application CRs based on your configuration and environment layout.

• ✅ Repeatable & Git-friendly Fully GitOps-compatible. Output is deterministic and fits naturally into pull request workflows.

📦 Installation

pip install make-argocd-fly

📁 Project Structure (Example)

config/
  ├── my_vars.yml              # Config file
  └── my_apps.yml              # Config file
source/
  ├── my_awesome_app/          # Application source resources
  └── monitoring/
        ├── prometheus/        # Application source resources
        └── grafana/           # Application source resources
output/
  └── my_env/                  # Environment name
        ├── my_awesome_app/    # Application YAML resources
        └── monitoring/
            ├── prometheus/    # Application YAML resources
            └── grafana/       # Application YAML resources

🔄 Example Workflow

make-argocd-fly

What it does:

• Applies Jinja2 templates with the right variables
• Renders Helm and Kustomize into raw manifests
• Generates Application manifests for ArgoCD
• Organizes everything under ./output/

📘 Documentation

• Getting Started
• Configuration Reference
• Application Templates
• Kustomize & Helm Applications
• ArgoCD Integration
• CLI Reference
• Examples
• Troubleshooting & Limitations

📣 Community & Feedback

• Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue
• Want to contribute? Check out CONTRIBUTING.md

🛡 License

MIT License – see LICENSE for full text.