This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Latchu@DevOps
Goal:
Learn how to create a Helm chart from scratch, understand its folder structure, and deploy it on your local or GKE Kubernetes cluster.
✅ What You Will Learn
- How to generate a Helm chart
- Understand the purpose of each file/folder in a chart
- Customize chart values
- Deploy your chart into Kubernetes
- Upgrade and rollback releases
🧪 Prerequisites
- Kubernetes cluster (Minikube, Kind, or GKE)
- Helm installed:
helm version
Create & Deploy Your First Helm Chart
Step 1 — Create a New Helm Chart
Run:
helm create myapp
This generates a folder like:
myapp/
Chart.yaml
values.yaml
charts/
templates/
templates/deployment.yaml
templates/service.yaml
templates/ingress.yaml
Step 2 — Understand Chart Structure
📌 Chart.yaml
Metadata of your application (chart name, version, app version).
📌 values.yaml
Default configuration values (image, tag, service type, replicas, ports).
This is the file users can override.
📌 templates/
Contains Kubernetes manifest templates with Helm placeholders.
📌 charts/
Subcharts (used in microservices or dependencies).
Step 3 — Open & Explore values.yaml
Example sections:
replicaCount: 1
image:
repository: nginx
tag: "latest"
service:
type: ClusterIP
port: 80
This values.yaml controls the behavior of the Kubernetes templates.
Step 4 — Render Templates Without Deploying
Check what Helm will generate:
helm template myapp/
Or with custom values:
helm template myapp/ --set replicaCount=2
Step 5 — Install the Chart
Deploy it to your cluster:
helm install myapp-release myapp/
Verify:
kubectl get pods
kubectl get svc
Step 6 — Upgrade the Release
Change something in values.yaml (e.g., replicas = 3).
Upgrade:
helm upgrade myapp-release myapp/
Check rollout:
kubectl get pods
Step 7 — Rollback to Previous Version
kubectl get pods
helm history myapp-release
helm rollback myapp-release 1
helm history myapp-release
kubectl get pods
Step 8 — Uninstall the Release
helm uninstall myapp-release
🎯 Outcome of Task #2
By completing Task #2, you now know:
✔ How to create a Helm chart
✔ How to understand & modify its structure
✔ How Helm templates convert into Kubernetes YAML
✔ How to install/upgrade/rollback Helm releases
✔ How to manage your app with Helm like a pro
🌟 Thanks for reading! If this post added value, a like ❤️, follow, or share would encourage me to keep creating more content.
— Latchu | Senior DevOps & Cloud Engineer
☁️ AWS | GCP | ☸️ Kubernetes | 🔐 Security | ⚡ Automation
📌 Sharing hands-on guides, best practices & real-world cloud solutions
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Latchu@DevOps
Latchu@DevOps | Sciencx (2025-11-26T07:18:58+00:00) 🔥Task #2 — Create Your First Helm Chart for GKE Cluster. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/26/%f0%9f%94%a5task-2-create-your-first-helm-chart-for-gke-cluster/
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