title: Helm Advanced Guide description: Advanced Helm concepts: Library charts, OCI, and Security

Helm Advanced Guide¶

Master complex deployment scenarios and enterprise-grade Helm usage.

📚 Library Charts¶

A Library Chart provides shared templates and functions but produces no release artifacts itself. It enables the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle across an organization.

In Chart.yaml:

type: library

Other charts can depend on it and use its defined templates:

{{- include "mylibrary.deployment" . }}

🐳 OCI Integration¶

Helm 3 supports storing charts in OCI (Open Container Initiative) registries (like Docker Hub, ECR, GAR), treating charts like container images.

helm registry login -u AWS -p $(aws ecr get-login-password) <aws_account_id>.dkr.ecr.<region>.amazonaws.com

Push a Chart¶

helm package .
helm push mychart-0.1.0.tgz oci://<registry-url>/helm-charts

Install from OCI¶

helm install myrelease oci://<registry-url>/helm-charts/mychart --version 0.1.0

🔒 Post-Rendering¶

Sometimes you need to modify a chart that you don't control (e.g., adding a sidecar or label to a Bitnami chart). Post-rendering allows you to pipe the rendered manifest to an external tool before applying it.

Common tools: Kustomize.

helm install myapp . --post-renderer ./kustomize-wrapper.sh

🛡️ Security¶

Managing Secrets¶

Helm does not encrypt secrets by default (they are base64 encoded). For production, use external tools: * helm-secrets: Encrypts values with SOPS (pgp/kms). * External Secrets Operator: Fetches secrets from AWS Secrets Manager/Vault and injects them.

Provenance/Signing¶

Verify that a chart hasn't been tampered with.

helm verify mychart-0.1.0.tgz

🚦 Performance & Limits¶

Release Size Limit¶

Helm stores release history in Kubernetes Secrets (default limit ~1MB). Large charts with thousands of resources can hit this limit. * Workaround: Use SQL storage backend for Helm (advanced configuration).

Atomic Upgrades¶

Ensure upgrades don't leave the cluster in a broken state.

helm upgrade --atomic --cleanup-on-fail myapp .

This automatically rolls back changes if the upgrade process (or pods becoming ready) fails.

� Quick Quiz¶

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What is a Library Chart?

👉 Take the Helm Advanced Quiz

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