TrueFoundry provides a way to deploy Helm charts directly through the platform, making it easy to deploy any Helm chart without needing to use kubectl or other command-line tools. It also helps keep track of the helm charts that are deployed along with their versions and change history. Truefoundry also provides the following additional features for helm charts deployment:
  1. Support for multiple repository types: Truefoundry allows deploying a Helm chart from public/private helm repository, OCI registry, and or your own Git repository.
  2. Support for Kustomize patches and additional manifests: Truefoundry allows you to add Kustomize patches and additional manifests to the Helm chart deployment. This is specially useful in case the helm chart doesn’t allow you to customize the values you need.
  3. Support for secrets management: While installing helm charts, we often need to create kubernetes secrets manually and then refer to them in the helm chart. Truefoundry makes this process secure by allowing you to create the secrets in Truefoundry(on your secret manager) and then add a kubernetes secret manifest via Kustomize to the helm chart deployment. You can read more on this in the steps below.
  4. Validation for cluster-scoped objects: Helm-charts downloaded from the internet can have malicious code in them, which can impact the security of your cluster. Truefoundry validates the helm chart by checking for any cluster-scoped objects in the helm chart.
Cluster-scoped objects (like ClusterRole, ClusterRoleBinding, or non-namespace scoped resources) cannot be applied when deploying Helm charts unless you have cluster admin privileges. This restriction prevents workspace users from creating cluster-level resources that could impact other workloads.
  1. Pause Helm Chart: Truefoundry allows you to pause the helm chart deployment. This is useful in case you want to stop the deployment and resume it later to save cost. Pausing the helm chart will scale all the pods in the helm chart to 0.

Step-by-Step Deployment Guide

1

Navigate to Deployments

Log in to your TrueFoundry dashboard and click on Deployments in the left sidebar, then click New to create a new deployment.TrueFoundry Deployments page showing the New button
2

Select Helm

In the application type page, click on show advanced and select Helm.Deploy new Helm modal showing Helm option selected
3

Choose Your Chart Source

Now you need to tell TrueFoundry where your Helm chart is located. You have three options:
TrueFoundry Helm chart deployment form showing the main configuration interface

Helm Chart Deployment Form


4

Configure Your Application

This is where you can update the values file, add kustomize patches and additional manifests.
5

Deploy and Monitor

Click Submit to deploy your chart. TrueFoundry will:
  1. Download your chart
  2. Apply your configuration
  3. Create the necessary Kubernetes resources
  4. Show you the deployment status
Deployment status showing the deployment status

Deployment Status

You can monitor the deployment progress and view logs by clicking on your deployment in the deployments list.

Private Repository Configuration

TrueFoundry allows you to deploy Helm charts from private repositories by configuring repository credentials using the Kubernetes manifest deployment feature or by adding repository integrations.

Complete Example: Deploying Redis

Let’s walk through a real example of deploying Redis (a popular caching database) with proper configuration and security:
Final Redis deployment showing the complete deployment with all configurations, Kustomize patches, and VirtualService applied

Final Redis Deployment Result