argocd-workloads-demo

A demo repository showing how application workloads can be managed by ArgoCD on a Kubernetes cluster

Software

Install arkade and then use it to setup dependent tools

ark get kubectl kubectx kubens helm k3d argocd devspace yq jq

Quick start

Create a k8s cluster

k3d cluster create argocd-01 --agents=2

Core install of ArgoCD

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/core-install.yaml

Login to ArgoCD

kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=argocd
argocd login --core

Start a local UI proxy

argocd admin dashboard

Deploy workloads

Deploy "dev" workloads

argocd app create bootstrap-dev \
   --repo https://github.com/myspotontheweb/argocd-workloads-demo.git \
   --path argocd/dev \
   --dest-namespace argocd \
   --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
   --sync-policy automated

Deploy "test" workloads

argocd app create bootstrap-test \
   --repo https://github.com/myspotontheweb/argocd-workloads-demo.git \
   --path argocd/test \
   --dest-namespace argocd \
   --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
   --sync-policy automated

Deploy "prod" workloads

argocd app create bootstrap-prod \
   --repo https://github.com/myspotontheweb/argocd-workloads-demo.git \
   --path argocd/prod \
   --dest-namespace argocd \
   --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
   --sync-policy automated

Configuration

Application configuration

Applications are deployed using Helm. Each application has a "dev", "test" and "prod" sub-directory corresponding to the environments used in the application release promotion process.

apps
├── springboot-demo1
    ├── dev
    │   ├── Chart.yaml
    │   └── values.yaml
    ├── prod
    │   ├── Chart.yaml
    │   └── values.yaml
    └── test
        ├── Chart.yaml
        └── values.yaml

Each helm chart uses dependency management to pull in the correct chart version. In this case the springboot-demo1 repository is publishing a versioned Helm chart, 1.0.1.

apiVersion: v2
name: springboot-demo1
description: A Helm chart for Spring Boot demo application
type: application
version: 1.0.0
appVersion: "v1.0.0"
dependencies:
  - name: demo1
    repository: oci://ghcr.io/myspotontheweb/spring-boot-demo1/charts
    version: 1.0.1
    alias: app

The values.yaml file is used to customize any settins for the target environment

app:
  replicaCount: 3

ArgoCD configuration

Each environment type is represented within ArgoCD as a Project. There is an additional ApplicationSet to generate the Application configuration for each deployment using helm.

argocd
├── dev
│   ├── ApplicationSet.yaml
│   └── AppProject.yaml
├── prod
│   ├── ApplicationSet.yaml
│   └── AppProject.yaml
└── test
    ├── ApplicationSet.yaml
    └── AppProject.yaml

Notes:

• The environment settings are contained in separate directories, enabling them to be deployed to different Kubernetes clusters

Testing Helm charts

The following command will download the remote helm chart dependencies

helm dependencies update apps/springboot-demo1/dev

These are stored locally as follows

apps/springboot-demo1
└── dev
    ├── Chart.lock
    ├── Chart.yaml
    └── charts
        └── demo1-1.0.1.tgz

Now possible to review the generated YAML manifests for Kubernetes

helm template rel1 apps/springboot-demo1/dev