Working with Chart Repositories
1. Adding Chart Repository
Example: Add popular repos
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx helm repo update
Flag Purpose --username / --passwordBasic auth for private repo --ca-fileCustom CA bundle --cert-file / --key-filemTLS client cert --pass-credentialsForward credentials to redirected URL --force-updateReplace existing repo entry
2. Listing Repositories
Command Output helm repo listTable of name + URL helm repo list -o jsonJSON for scripting helm repo list -o yamlYAML output
3. Updating Repository Index
Command Purpose helm repo updateRefresh index.yaml for all repos helm repo update bitnamiRefresh single repo only helm repo update --fail-on-repo-update-failExit non-zero on any failure (CI)
4. Removing Repository
Example: Remove + verify
helm repo remove bitnami helm repo list | grep -v bitnami
Command Effect helm repo remove <name>Deletes entry from repositories.yaml + cache helm repo remove a b cRemoves multiple repos
5. Searching Repository Charts
Example: Find a chart
helm search repo nginx helm search repo nginx --versions # all versions helm search repo nginx --version "^1.0" # version constraint helm search repo bitnami/ # all charts in repo
6. Viewing Repository Index
Command Result cat ~/.cache/helm/repository/bitnami-index.yamlRaw cached index curl -s https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami/index.yamlLive index from server helm search repo bitnami/ -o yamlParsed view of charts
7. Using Private Repositories
Example: HTTPS basic auth
helm repo add internal https://charts.corp.example.com \ --username " $CHARTS_USER " --password " $CHARTS_PASS " helm repo update internal helm install api internal/api-service
8. Configuring Repository Credentials
Mechanism Usage Basic auth --username / --password on repo addmTLS --cert-file, --key-file, --ca-fileEnv vars (CI) Inject secrets, never commit repositories.yaml with passwords OCI helm registry login writes to ~/.config/helm/registry/config.json
Warning: repositories.yaml stores passwords in plain text. Use OCI + Docker creds helpers or external secret tooling for CI.
9. Setting Repository Cache
Setting Value Cache root $HELM_CACHE_HOME (default OS cache dir)Per-repo index $HELM_CACHE_HOME/repository/<name>-index.yamlDownloaded charts $HELM_CACHE_HOME/repository/<name>-<version>.tgzClear cache rm -rf $HELM_CACHE_HOME/repository && helm repo update
10. Managing Multiple Repositories
Example: Scripted CI bootstrap
declare -A repos = ( [ bitnami ]= https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami [ prom ]= https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts [ grafana ]= https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts ) for name in "${ ! repos [ @ ]}" ; do helm repo add " $name " "${ repos [ $name ]}" --force-update done helm repo update
Pattern Why Pin repo URLs in Git Reproducible builds across teams Use --force-update Idempotent re-runs in pipelines Prefer OCI over HTTP Auth via existing registry credentials