Chen Y.
Sample OCI publishing walkthrough is great
We moved our charts to an OCI registry with signing following the lesson. Smooth and well explained.
Helm charts: package and ship Kubernetes apps cleanly
Write readable Helm charts with good defaults, validate values with a schema, test templates and publish charts to an OCI registry
Created by Mateo Silva
- Updated September 2026
- English
- Intermediate
What you will learn
- Structure a Helm chart with clear values and reusable helpers
- Write templates with conditionals, loops and named templates that stay readable
- Install, upgrade and roll back releases safely
- Validate values with a JSON schema and test templates in CI
- Manage chart dependencies and publish charts to an OCI registry
- Deploy charts through a GitOps tool with environment specific values
Course content
Helm essentials
Designing good values
- Video: A small, stable values interface 10 min
- Video: Validating values with values.schema.json 11 min
- Article: Secrets without committing them 10 min
- Video: Documenting the chart 8 min
Lifecycle and hooks
- Video: Hooks for database migrations 11 min
- Article: Rolling restarts on configuration change 9 min
- Video: Upgrading resources that cannot be changed 9 min
- Video: Uninstalling and keeping resources 8 min
Testing charts
- Article: helm lint and rendering checks 8 min
- Video: Unit tests with helm-unittest 11 min
- Video: Install tests with chart-testing 10 min
Dependencies and distribution
- Article: Chart dependencies 10 min
- Video: Library charts for shared templates 10 min
- Video: Publishing to an OCI registry 9 min
- Article: Using third party charts responsibly 9 min
Helm in GitOps workflows
- Video: Helm with Argo CD 11 min
- Video: Helm with Flux 10 min
- Article: Promoting releases between environments 9 min
- Quiz: Final check 6 min
Requirements
- Working knowledge of Kubernetes Deployments, Services and ConfigMaps
- kubectl and Docker installed
- Basic YAML comfort
Description
Helm is the most widely used way to package Kubernetes applications. A good chart lets anyone install your application with a handful of values. A bad chart is a maze of nested conditionals that nobody dares to touch. This course teaches you to write the good kind.
What you will build
We package a web API with a worker and a database migration job. The chart starts from helm create, gets trimmed to what we actually need and grows carefully: configurable resources, probes, autoscaling, secrets from an external store, hooks for migrations, and a values schema that rejects mistakes before anything reaches the cluster.
- Chart structure, templates, helpers and values
- Go templating and Sprig functions without the mess
- Release lifecycle: install, upgrade, rollback and history
- Testing with helm lint, helm template, unit tests and chart testing in CI
- Dependencies, library charts and publishing to OCI registries
- Using charts from Argo CD or Flux in a GitOps workflow
Versions
Helm 4 was released in late 2025, and Helm 3 remains common. Charts using apiVersion: v2 work with both, and everything in this course applies to either. Where commands or behaviour differ, I point it out. We use a local kind cluster, so no cloud account is needed.
Who this course is for
- Developers packaging their services for Kubernetes
- Platform engineers maintaining shared charts
- Teams cleaning up charts that grew out of control
Instructor
Mateo Silva
Builds serverless and Kubernetes platforms on AWS. Teaches Lambda, CDK and Helm with real projects
- 4.4 instructor rating
- 21 reviews
- 4,470 students
- 3 courses
- Sample
I am a platform engineer who moves between two worlds: serverless applications on AWS Lambda and container platforms on Kubernetes. Teams usually need both, and I teach the trade offs honestly.
Each of my courses is built around one project that grows from a single file to something you could hand to a team: an HTTP API, a CDK app with tests, a Helm chart with sane defaults. I care about the parts tutorials skip, such as permissions, configuration per environment, rollbacks and cost.
I write infrastructure in TypeScript and YAML most days and I will show you the mistakes I made so you can skip them.
Student reviews
Nikolai P.
Sample Our charts are finally readable
We cut our main chart's values file by more than half after this course. Nobody misses the removed options.
Amira T.
Sample Schema validation saved us
Adding values.schema.json caught a typo in a production values file during the next pull request.
George E.
Sample Very practical testing section
helm-unittest and chart-testing in CI were exactly what we lacked. The GitOps section could be longer.
Lina K.
Sample Clear templating explanations
Whitespace control and the range scope finally make sense. The readability test is a great rule.
Pablo M.
Sample Good but assumes Kubernetes comfort
Content is accurate. I needed to refresh my Kubernetes basics before some lessons made sense.
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