🚀 Getting Started with Helm in Kubernetes — A Beginner-Friendly Guide

 By Raees Qazi | DevOps Engineer | Learner | Mentor | Creator

As a DevOps engineer, one of the tools I use regularly to simplify Kubernetes application deployments is Helm. If you’ve been deploying apps using plain YAML files (like namespace.yaml, deployment.yaml, service.yaml, etc.), then you’re going to love Helm!

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Let me break it down in a very simple way 👇

🤔 What is Helm?

Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes — just like apt is for Ubuntu or yum is for CentOS.

Before Helm, we had to manually write and manage multiple Kubernetes manifest files to deploy an app:

  • Namespace
  • Deployment
  • Service
  • Ingress
  • HPA
    …and the list goes on.

With Helm, you get a template-based system. Just define your variables (like image name, replica count, etc.) in a file, and Helm handles the rest.

🛠️ How to Install Helm on Ubuntu

Installing Helm is super simple. Just run these three commands:

curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3
chmod +x get_helm.sh
bash get_helm.sh

Once installed, verify the version:

$ helm version

🧱 Helm Chart Structure

When you create a Helm chart (a Helm-based application package), you’ll see some important files:

📄 Chart.yaml

This file contains metadata about your app:

  • App name
  • Version
  • Description

📄 values.yaml

This is the heart of Helm. You define all the configurable parameters here:

  • Number of replicas
  • Image name & tag
  • Port numbers
  • Resource limits
    …and more!

You don’t need to edit every template file — just change values here.

🚀 Deploying an App with Helm

Let’s say you have a Django-based notes app inside a folder Django-notes-app.
To deploy it using Helm:

$ helm install my-notes-app ./Django-notes-app

Boom! Your application is now deployed 🚀

❌ Uninstalling a Helm Release

If you want to remove the app:

$ helm uninstall my-notes-app

Helm will clean everything related to this release.

✅ Final Thoughts

Using Helm:

  • Saves time
  • Avoids repetition
  • Keeps things clean and reusable

I hope this overview of Helm helps you understand its value in the DevOps workflow. If you found this helpful, please share this blog with others!

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