| name | helm-upgrade |
| description | Use when asked to deploy, upgrade, roll back, or release a service to Kubernetes. Also triggers for questions about Helm chart values, image tags, release history, or when a deployment is failing or stuck.
|
| license | MIT |
Helm upgrade — project runbook
Pre-flight (always run these first)
kubectl config current-context
kubectl get namespace <namespace>
helm diff upgrade <release> charts/<service> \
--namespace <namespace> \
--values charts/<service>/values-<env>.yaml \
--set image.tag=<new-tag>
Stop if any -/+ (destroy + recreate) lines appear — they are disruptive.
Upgrade
helm upgrade --install <release> charts/<service> \
--namespace <namespace> \
--values charts/<service>/values-<env>.yaml \
--set image.tag=<new-tag> \
--atomic --timeout 5m --history-max 5
--atomic auto-rolls-back on health check failure.
Smoke test
kubectl rollout status deployment/<release> -n <namespace> --timeout=3m
curl -sf https://<ingress-host>/actuator/health | jq .status
Rollback
helm history <release> -n <namespace>
helm rollback <release> 0 -n <namespace>
Failure patterns
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|
ImagePullBackOff | Wrong tag or missing Artifactory creds | kubectl describe pod → check events |
Pod stuck Pending | Insufficient node resources | Check requests vs node capacity |
| Readiness probe failing | App not healthy at startup | Check logs, raise initialDelaySeconds |
another operation in progress | Previous release stuck | Check and delete stuck Helm secret |
Values file locations
charts/<service>/values.yaml ← defaults
charts/<service>/values-dev.yaml ← DEV overrides
charts/<service>/values-staging.yaml ← staging
charts/<service>/values-prod.yaml ← prod (PR required)
