Helm Replace Values With Environment Variables

Replaces values in a given values.yaml file with the values from environment variables.

Scenario

A HELM chart has a values.yaml file that contains the values to be replaced inside the templates.

It is quite normal to store secrets and other configuration variables on tools for CI/CD and then to override the values in values.yaml using the values from such variables using the option --set-string from helm install.

This is easy to be done but can generate huge helm install commands with tens of lines with --set-string.

Instead of using --set-string one can replace the values from values.yaml with the values from the environment variables that are already on the CI/CD runner.

Example

Let's say you have the following values.yaml contents:

payment_service_url: "https://payment-service-dev.com"
session_service_url: "https://session-service-dev.com"

And on your CI/CD runner you have the variables:

export PAYMENT_SERVICE_URL="https://payment-service-production.com"
export SESSION_SERVICE_URL="https://session-service-production.com"

You can replace the values with this plugin using the following command:

helm replace-values-env -f values.yaml -u

The -u option will tell the plugin the environment variables are in uppercase.

The resulting file would be:

payment_service_url: "https://payment-service-production.com"
session_service_url: "https://session-service-production.com"

Usage

Usage:
    helm replace-values-env [OPTIONS]

Options:
    -h, --help                  Shows usage help
    -f values.yaml              The file to have it's values replaced
    -p, --prefix <prefix>       A prefix to be removed from the variables' names
    -u, --uppercased            The environment variables are in uppercase
    -i, --ignore <var1,var2>    Comma separated list of variables to ignore
    -d, --dry-run               Outputs the resulting file without replacing the original one
    -v, --verbose               Verbose mode, shows the kept and replaced lines

Install

$ helm plugin install https://github.com/infog/helm-replace-values-env
Installed plugin: replace-values-env