Running Skaffold fails if configured to work with Helm

Question

I am trying to make Skaffold work with Helm.

Below is my skaffold.yml file:

apiVersion: skaffold/v2beta23
kind: Config
metadata:
  name: test-app
build:
  artifacts:
  - image: test.common.repositories.cloud.int/manager/k8s
    docker:
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
deploy:
  helm:
    releases:
    - name: my-release
      artifactOverrides:
        image: test.common.repositories.cloud.int/manager/k8s
      imageStrategy:
        helm: {}

Here is my values.yaml:

image:
  repository: test.common.repositories.cloud.int/manager/k8s
  tag: 1.0.0

Running the skaffold command results in:

...
Starting deploy...
Helm release my-release not installed. Installing...
Error: INSTALLATION FAILED: failed to download ""
deploying "my-release": install: exit status 1

Does anyone have an idea, what is missing here?!

Answer 1

I believe this is happening because you have not specified a chart to use for the helm release. I was able to reproduce your issue by commenting out the chartPath field in the skaffold.yaml file of the helm-deployment example in the Skaffold repo.

You can specify a local chart using the deploy.helm.release.chartPath field or a remote chart using the deploy.helm.release.remoteChart field.