What is Helm in Kubernetes?

Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes — it defines, installs, and upgrades complex Kubernetes applications using packages called charts. Think of it as apt/yum/brew for Kubernetes. Core concepts: Chart: bundle of Kubernetes manifest templates + default values. Published to chart repositories (Artifact Hub, Docker Hub OCI). Release: installed instance of a chart. Multiple releases from the same chart (dev release, prod release). Values: configuration that overrides chart defaults. Common commands: helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx helm repo update helm search repo nginx helm install my-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \ --namespace ingress --create-namespace \ --values values.yaml \ --set controller.replicaCount=3 helm upgrade my-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx --values values.yaml helm rollback my-nginx 1 helm uninstall my-nginx helm list -A # all releases helm status my-nginx helm get values my-nginx helm get manifest my-nginx helm template my-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx --values values.yaml # dry run. Chart structure: mychart/ Chart.yaml # metadata values.yaml # default values templates/ deployment.yaml service.yaml _helpers.tpl # named template partials NOTES.txt # post-install notes charts/ # dependencies. Template functions: {{ .Values.image.tag }}, {{ .Release.Name }}, {{ .Chart.Version }}, {{ include "helpers.name" . }}, {{ toYaml .Values.env | nindent 12 }}, {{- if .Values.enabled }}, {{- range .Values.hosts }}. Helm 3 vs 2: Helm 3 removed Tiller (server-side component) — uses Kubernetes RBAC directly. Release state stored in Secrets. OCI registries: helm push mychart-1.0.0.tgz oci://registry/charts. Helmfile: declarative Helm releases management — deploy multiple charts in order with dependencies.