Skip to main content

Using Helm Diff

Helm Diff is a lifesaver plugin that previews exactly what will change in your Kubernetes cluster before you actually deploy it! 🛡️

By clearly highlighting added, modified, and deleted resources, it allows you to safely inspect intended modifications and avoid terrifying deployment surprises.

📦 Installation​

🌐 For Workstations with Internet Access​

Run this quick one-liner:

helm plugin install https://github.com/databus23/helm-diff

🔒 For Air-Gapped Windows Workstations (Outnet)​

Working securely offline? No problem. Install it manually by copying a few files into your HELM_PLUGINS directory:

  1. Clone the helm-diff GitLab repository to your local machine.
  2. Open the cloned folder and navigate to the tar-gz directory.
  3. Extract the helm-diff-windows-amd64.tgz archive.
  4. Find your Helm plugins directory by running helm env (look for the HELM_PLUGINS path in the output).
  5. If the HELM_PLUGINS directory doesn't exist, create it!
  6. Inside HELM_PLUGINS, create a new folder called helm-diff.
  7. Finally, copy the bin directory and plugin.yaml file from your extracted archive directly into your new HELM_PLUGINS/helm-diff folder.

Boom! Helm Diff is ready to go on your Windows machine. 🎉

🚀 How to Use It​

Ready to upgrade a chart? Let's assume your chart is named foo and your values file is dev-values.yaml.

Navigate to your chart directory and run:

helm diff upgrade foo --values dev-values.yaml .

Need to merge multiple values files? Just chain them:

helm diff upgrade foo --values dev-values.yaml --values dev1-values.yaml .

If there are any differences between your cluster's current state and your new configuration, the plugin will spit out a clear, color-coded diff showing exactly which Kubernetes objects will be created, modified, or deleted!

Example Output: Helm diff