MVC support Helm charts in the GitLab container registry
Problem to solve
The GitLab Container Registry allows users to build, push and share Docker images/tags using the Docker client, GitLab CI or the GitLab API.
Helm is a tool that streamlines installing and managing Kubernetes applications. (Think of it like apt/yum/homebrew for Kubernetes.) Charts are Helm packages that contain at least two things:
- A description of the package (Chart.yaml)
- One or more templates, which contain Kubernetes manifest files
Charts can be stored on disk, or fetched from remote chart repositories. Because a Chart Repository can be any HTTP server that can serve YAML and gzipped tarballs, users have a plethora of options when it comes down to hosting a Chart Repository, including the GitLab Container Registry.
Users are currently using the GitLab Container Registry to store their Helm charts. However, we do not currently offer any documentation or best practices. In addition, the meta data does not get displayed in the UI.
Intended users
Further details
Benefits
- Support Helm v3 before it goes GA
Proposal
As a first step in supporting Helm, allow users to leverage the GitLab container registry as a Helm chart repository. Document how to do this using the Helm client and GitLab CI and add these examples to a new Examples
section of the documentation for the Package stage.
Permissions and Security
There are no permissions changes required for this issue. Developers, maintainers and owners all have permissions to push images to the container registry.
Documentation
Testing
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
Success looks like we have confirmed that we can use the Container Registry as a helm chart repository and have documented how our users can do the same.