Review Helm

Deploys a Helm chart as a GitLab review environment and removes it when the review environment stops.

The component expects a Helm chart artifact under release/charts/ from needs-start, renders any configured values files with environment substitution, and runs helm upgrade --install against the selected namespace. After a successful deploy, it reads the first Ingress host in the namespace and writes it to review.env as CI_ENVIRONMENT_HOST, so GitLab can set the environment URL from the dotenv report.

include:
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/$CI_PROJECT_PATH/helm@$CI_COMMIT_SHA
    inputs:
      name: my-app
      path: chart
  - component: $CI_SERVER_FQDN/$CI_PROJECT_PATH/review-helm@$CI_COMMIT_SHA
    inputs:
      release: my-app
      namespace: "$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG"
      create-namespace: true
      value-files:
        - chart/values.review.yaml
      set-parameters:
        - image.tag=$CI_COMMIT_SHA
      needs-start:
        - job: build:helm:my-app
          artifacts: true

Set create-namespace: true when the component should create and delete the namespace for the review release. Keep it false when the namespace lifecycle is managed outside this component.

Kubernetes service account

The GitLab CI variable KUBECONFIG must point to a service account that can read the target namespace, manage the Helm release resources, and read Ingress resources so the component can discover the review URL.

Inputs

Name	Description	Default	Type
---	---	---	---
context	Kubernetes context to use for the review release.		string
create-namespace	Create and delete the namespace with the Helm test namespace helpers.	false	boolean
environment	GitLab environment prefix.	review	string
environment-identifier	GitLab environment suffix.	/$CI_PIPELINE_IID-$CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA	string
name	The name prefix for review Helm jobs.	review-helm	string
namespace	Kubernetes namespace for the review release.	$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG	string
needs-start	Jobs that provide the Helm chart artifact.	[{"job":"build:helm:helm","artifacts":true}]	array
needs-stop	Jobs that the stop job depends on.	[]	array
release	Helm release name.	$CI_PROJECT_NAME	string
rules	Rules that control when review Helm jobs run.	[{"if":"$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == \"merge_request_event\"","when":"on_success"},{"when":"never"}]	array
set-parameters	Helm --set parameters as key=value entries.	[]	array
stage	Pipeline stage for review Helm jobs.	test	string
tag			string
timeout	Timeout for Helm install, upgrade, and stop operations.	20m	string
value-files	Helm values files to pass to the review release.	[]	array