The result of command Helm get values don't include comments

Question

I have a values file values-production.yaml with comments such as:

# some other comments
# another comments
image: xxxx

And I use command helm install -n=test --values=values-production.yaml some-chart to deploy application on my Cluster. But, when I used command helm get values test, the result just like this:

image: xxx

There is no any comments. Where is my comments? How to keep comments?

My Helm version: Client: v2.11.0 Server: v2.11.0

Answer 1

This is impossible, as helm install doesn't upload your values-production.yaml file as is. Rather, it constructs an object representing all the values from various defaults and inputs, then converts that object into a file that it posts to the server. Any comments will be lost in the conversion to the object.

The core of how the helm install command is implemented is here:

func (i *installCmd) run() error {
    // omitting some code
    // note below rawVals is the output of the vals function

    rawVals, err := vals(i.valueFiles, i.values, i.stringValues, i.fileValues, i.certFile, i.keyFile, i.caFile)

    // omitting some code
    // note below the client asks the server to install the chart, passing values
    // via rawVals constructed above

    res, err := i.client.InstallReleaseFromChart(
        chartRequested,
        i.namespace,
        helm.ValueOverrides(rawVals),
        helm.ReleaseName(i.name),
        helm.InstallDryRun(i.dryRun),
        helm.InstallReuseName(i.replace),
        helm.InstallDisableHooks(i.disableHooks),
        helm.InstallDisableCRDHook(i.disableCRDHook),
        helm.InstallSubNotes(i.subNotes),
        helm.InstallTimeout(i.timeout),
        helm.InstallWait(i.wait),
        helm.InstallDescription(i.description))

    // more code omitted
}

and here is what vals does -- notes that the data from the value files goes into the base object and that thing is what is finally serialized to YAML and returned by vals:

func vals(valueFiles valueFiles, values []string, stringValues []string, fileValues []string, CertFile, KeyFile, CAFile string) ([]byte, error) {
    base := map[string]interface{}{}

    // omitting code that populates base with all the values from valuesFiles, etc.

    return yaml.Marshal(base)
}

Helm isn't intended to be used for file-sharing, if there's text in values-production.yaml that you want to store, retrieve, and share that isn't semantically meaningful to Helm (like comments), you'll have to consider a different solution. Not sure what your use-case is, but you could consider some blobstore service, DropBox, etc.