implementing-gitops_skill

Overview

This skill implements GitOps continuous delivery for Kubernetes using ArgoCD or Flux. It provides patterns and practical configs for pull-based deployments, drift detection, multi-cluster management, progressive rollouts, and secure secret handling. Use it to make Git the single source of truth and automate reliable, auditable deployments across environments.

How this skill works

The skill codifies GitOps principles: store all desired cluster state in Git, run cluster operators that pull changes and reconcile continuously, and manage environments via overlays or branch strategies. It includes ArgoCD and Flux installation/bootstrap examples, Application/Kustomization patterns, sync hooks, and CLI commands for manual inspection and remediation. Secret management, progressive delivery integrations, and multi-cluster registration patterns are included for production use.

When to use it

• Automating Kubernetes deployments where Git should be the single source of truth
• Managing deployments across multiple clusters or environments (dev/staging/prod)
• Implementing pull-based continuous delivery with automatic reconciliation
• Detecting and remediating configuration drift and meeting audit requirements
• Enabling progressive delivery (canary, blue-green, rolling) with automated rollbacks
• Bootstrapping disaster recovery and reproducible cluster state from Git

Best practices

• Keep all declarative manifests in Git; avoid imperative kubectl changes in-cluster
• Choose ArgoCD for UI-driven multi-tenant workflows, Flux for lightweight, modular platform automation
• Use Kustomize overlays or branch-based promotion to separate environment configs
• Encrypt secrets using SOPS/SealedSecrets or reference external vaults for production secrets
• Enable automated reconciliation with prune and selfHeal, and expose metrics for observability
• Test progressive rollouts with metrics-driven analysis and automated rollback hooks

Example use cases

• Bootstrap Flux per cluster and use a single Git repo with cluster-specific paths for fleet management
• Install ArgoCD to centralize application deployments and create ApplicationSets for multi-environment apps
• Implement Argo Rollouts or Flagger to perform canary rollouts and automated traffic shifting
• Use pre-sync hooks for database migrations and post-sync jobs for smoke tests
• Integrate SOPS with KMS or ExternalSecrets to keep secrets encrypted outside of plain Git
• Automate environment promotion: build image in CI, commit updated image tag to overlay, let GitOps operator deploy