Helmix

A simple Kubernetes templating engine, that:

• Is simpler than Helm and has minimal dependencies. Goes well with k3s.
• Single python file, pip-installable if useful. Useful for air-gapped environments.
• Templates are simple and conscise (jinja2), but the validation is done by the kubectl during apply.
• Handles both templates of kubernetes files and application configs.
• Doesn't depend on a particular file structure or file formats.
• Experimental: Handles variable files encrypted with GPG.

Rationale

There are multiple available solutions to this problem. Many people are probably happy with a verbose Kustomize, and the rest is probably happily using Helm so there's not much available 'simple' (yet good) solutions. I've tried: ktmpl (nice but no configmaps), k8comp (config file, installation via docker/helm, no configmaps), kustomize (verbose, configmaps but... not parametrized?), but they didn't fit with my usecase.

Solution like this is so simple to write that I assume some companies might be using similar self-made solutions internally, or they are so unpopular that I wasn't able to find it.

Writing it took less time than the initial research, publishing took another three hours. Bonus features will probably take another 3h.

Examples

Helmix doesn't assume any particular file structure. Example you could use:

templates/
  base.yaml      (eg. namespaces)
  databases.yaml (some stateful sets)
  app.yaml       (some deployment)
configs/
  app.conf.json  (application config in any format)
envs/
  common.yaml    (common variables)
  test.yaml      (overrides for test environment)
  preprod.yaml   (overrides for preprod env)
  prod.yaml

Variables can be combined from multiple files to override only necessary variables and keep the configuration DRY.

Render a single or multiple templates:

helmix -v envs/common.yaml -v envs/test.yaml templates/*

Output can be piped to the kubectl, or you can pass --apply (and potentially --kubectl and --context).

Generate a config map from a file, while applying template variables. This works similarly to kubectl create configmap app-config --from-file=configs/app.conf.json:

helmix --apply --config-map app-config \
    -v envs/common.yaml -v envs/test1.yaml configs/app.conf.json

Inspect final variables, after combining:

helmix -v envs/common.yaml -v envs/test1.yaml --dump

Installation

Helmix requires:

• Python 3 (3.9 tested)
• Jinja2 (2.11.3 tested)
• PyYAML (5.3.1 tested)
• optionally Python GPGME bindings (1.14 tested) to support encrypted variables.

No fancy features are used so a much older versions of Python or dependencies should work as well.

Use pip3:

pip3 install helmix

GPG version (pip3 install helmix[gpg]) will require some build dependencies (like libgpgme-dev).

You can use pipenv:

git clone https://github.com/exatel/helmix.git
cd helmix
pipenv install
pipenv shell
./helmix ...

You can also install dependencies using apt (tested on Debian Bullseye) and copy the file into your project, or /usr/local/bin/helmix:

apt install python3-jinja2 python3-yaml python3-gpg
sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/helmix \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/exatel/helmix/master/helmix
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/helmix

Options

usage: helmix [-h] [-v vars.yaml] [--dump] [-s key=variable] [-n NAMESPACE]
              [--config-map CONFIG_MAP] [--apply] [--kubectl KUBECTL]
              [--context CONTEXT] [--dry-run DRY_RUN]
              [TEMPLATE ...]

Simple k8s config generator

positional arguments:
  TEMPLATE              template files to build

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v vars.yaml, --vars vars.yaml
                        paths to variable files in order
  --dump                dump final variables
  -s key=variable, --set key=variable
                        override variable using command line

Config maps:
  -n NAMESPACE, --namespace NAMESPACE
                        namespace for the config map
  --config-map CONFIG_MAP
                        Name of the config map to generate from a template

Instant apply:
  --apply               instead of printing the template, apply it using
                        kubectl
  --kubectl KUBECTL     path to the kubectl binary, by default uses $PATH
  --context CONTEXT     kubectl context to use, by default 'default'
  --dry-run DRY_RUN     use 'client' or 'server' to try configuration without
                        persisting it

Notes and TODOs

Note:

• Template code has to be trusted as it can execute arbitrary python code during rendering.

Possible todos:

• Allow vars to be a directory of files.
• Optional variable validation using a separate schema yaml.
• Merging lists variables should append instead of overriding? Could be defined in schema file along the validation.
• Setting single keys via CLI.