Helm 3.12: Chart Management and Security Excellence

Introduction

Helm 3.12, released on September 12, 2023, is most relevant if you’re operating Kubernetes in production and want fewer surprises. This post walks through the highlights and the kinds of operational scenarios where the changes tend to matter first.

OCI Registry Improvements

• OCI support improvements expand compatibility with OCI-compatible registries.
• Chart storage optimizations reduce storage requirements and improve access speed.
• Authentication enhancements provide better credential management for registries.
• Publishing improvements simplify chart distribution through OCI registries.

Security Enhancements

1. Chart signing improvements enable better verification and trust of charts.
2. Dependency validation enhancements detect and prevent security vulnerabilities.
3. RBAC integration provides fine-grained permissions for chart operations.
4. Audit logging tracks all chart installations and updates.

Dependency Management

• Dependency resolution improvements provide better handling of complex chart dependencies.
• Version management enables better control over dependency versions.
• Conflict resolution handles dependency conflicts more intelligently.
• Lock files enable reproducible deployments with pinned dependencies.

Developer Experience

• CLI improvements simplify common chart operations and workflows.
• Template enhancements provide more powerful templating capabilities.
• Testing tools enable easier chart development and validation.
• Documentation improvements provide better guides and examples.

Getting Started

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

Install a chart from OCI registry:

helm install my-app oci://registry.example.com/charts/my-app --version 1.0.0

Create a new chart:

helm create my-chart

Summary

Helm 3.12 provides teams with comprehensive package management capabilities for Kubernetes applications with enhanced security and OCI support.