The terraform-provider-helm is a Terraform provider for managing Helm charts in Kubernetes clusters. It allows users to deploy, upgrade, and manage Helm releases using Terraform, enabling infrastructure-as-code practices for Kubernetes applications.

Pros

• Seamless integration of Helm charts with Terraform workflows
• Provides version control and reproducibility for Helm deployments
• Supports both Helm 2 and Helm 3
• Allows for easy management of multiple Helm releases across different environments

Cons

• Limited support for some advanced Helm features
• May require additional setup and configuration compared to using Helm CLI directly
• Learning curve for users not familiar with both Terraform and Helm
• Potential performance overhead when managing many releases

Code Examples

1. Basic Helm release deployment:

resource "helm_release" "example" {
  name       = "my-redis-release"
  repository = "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami"
  chart      = "redis"
  version    = "17.3.14"

  set {
    name  = "cluster.enabled"
    value = "true"
  }
}

2. Helm release with values file:

resource "helm_release" "example" {
  name       = "my-nginx-release"
  repository = "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami"
  chart      = "nginx"
  version    = "13.2.24"

  values = [
    file("${path.module}/values.yaml")
  ]
}

3. Helm release with multiple set values:

resource "helm_release" "example" {
  name       = "my-wordpress-release"
  repository = "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami"
  chart      = "wordpress"
  version    = "15.2.35"

  set {
    name  = "wordpressUsername"
    value = "admin"
  }

  set {
    name  = "wordpressPassword"
    value = var.wordpress_password
  }

  set {
    name  = "mariadb.auth.rootPassword"
    value = var.mariadb_root_password
  }
}

Getting Started

1. Add the Helm provider to your Terraform configuration:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    helm = {
      source  = "hashicorp/helm"
      version = "~> 2.9.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "helm" {
  kubernetes {
    config_path = "~/.kube/config"
  }
}

2. Define a Helm release resource:

resource "helm_release" "example" {
  name       = "my-release"
  repository = "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami"
  chart      = "nginx"
  version    = "13.2.24"
}

3. Run terraform init to initialize the provider, then terraform apply to deploy the Helm release.