Two weeks ago I gave myself a task: write a Helm chart from scratch and really get Helm.
After finishing the exercise, I also did a tool-selection exercise alongside it,
thinking about why I'd choose Helm when Kustomize is simpler.
I asked myself "what capability does this situation actually need," letting the requirements pick the tool, rather than letting features pick me.
Today's learning task started out simple: install the helm-diff plugin, try helm diff upgrade once, and understand why you'd want it in production.
Instead, from the helm plugin install moment onward, I hit 4 pitfalls in a row — and the last one let me actually witness how "the diff shows no change, but the real deployment changes things" happens. Here's the whole process, written down.
I started picking up Helm this week — reading the official template guide while writing a chart by hand, and also taking apart one of Bitnami's big charts. Here are the three concepts I found most important, written down as notes to my future self.