Helm Chart Template Notes

Helm Chart Template Notes

In this tutorial, we will discuss helm chart template notes and how to include notes for a chart.

As we discussed earlier, within the templates folder, there could be three different types of files templates file; that’s going to be the manifest for Kubernetes. And NOTES.txt that’s going to have the notes for the file and other helper templates.

Within the NOTES.txt, I can give the instructions on all the notes that should get displayed once the chart is deployed. This can act as another template where the normal template syntax can be included in the notes.

For example, I can access the global built-in objects and the other rules of templates like looping everything works within the notes.

Generally, this will be displayed whenever I do a dry run or any deployment of the helm chart. These notes will show in the end to be helpful for the users to understand all the instructions or the steps to follow further once the release is made.

Example

Let’s go ahead and create sample notes. Within templates, I’m going to make a file called NOTES.txt. Let me include sample content.

ashok@waytoeasylearn:~/mychart/templates$ cat NOTES.txt 
Thank you for support {{ .Chart.Name }}.
Your release is named {{ .Release.Name }}.
To learn more about the release, try:
  $ helm status {{ .Release.Name }}
  $ helm get all {{ .Release.Name }}
  $ helm uninstall {{ .Release.Name }}

So here I am, including some of the template derivatives and some instructions. So that these particular instructions are these six lines will get displayed once the release is done.

Let me go ahead and do the installation of the chart.

ashok@waytoeasylearn:~$ helm install notesdemo ./mychart/
NAME: notesdemo
LAST DEPLOYED: Mon May 24 15:00:21 2021
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
Thank you for installing mychart.
Your release is named notesdemo.
To learn more about the release, try:
  $ helm status notesdemo
  $ helm get all notesdemo
  $ helm uninstall notesdemo

The chart got deployed, and the instructions that we provided were part of the notes displayed.

This is the place where we will provide the connection configurations in case if I am providing any database or deploying any database, I can provide the user ID, passwords or anything that I am generating as a part of the template.

So that it will be useful for the users further to understand what got deployed, how to connect to those resources, how to make use of those resources, and what care to take, especially when that particular release is made.

Please note that it is always recommended to have a clear note on every chart.