Jenkins X per environment values.yaml

Question

I am using Jenkins X and attempting to set different variables via values.yaml files based upon the environment that I am promoting to. For example, when promoting a release from staging to production, I would like the values.yaml file in my environment-xxxx-production repository to override values in my project repository.

According to https://github.com/jenkins-x/jx/issues/1667#issuecomment-420901836 this comment, this should work simply by placing variables in the environment-xxxx-production repository.

Sample deployment.yaml file inside of my project.

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: {{ template "fullname" . }}
  labels:
    draft: {{ default "draft-app" .Values.draft }}
    chart: "{{ .Chart.Name }}-{{ .Chart.Version | replace "+" "_" }}"
spec:
  replicas: {{ .Values.replicaCount }}
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        draft: {{ default "draft-app" .Values.draft }}
        app: {{ template "fullname" . }}
{{- if .Values.podAnnotations }}
      annotations:
{{ toYaml .Values.podAnnotations | indent 8 }}
{{- end }}
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: {{ .Chart.Name }}
        image: "{{ .Values.image.repository }}:{{ .Values.image.tag }}"
        imagePullPolicy: {{ .Values.image.pullPolicy }}
        ports:
        - containerPort: {{ .Values.service.internalPort }}
{{/*
Here's the section in question.
*/}}
{{- if .Values.env }}
        env:
{{- if .Values.prBranch }}
          - name: MY_ENV
            value: "some_value"
{{- else }}
{{ toYaml .Values.env | indent 10 }}
{{- end }}
{{- end }}
        livenessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: {{ .Values.probePath }}
            port: {{ .Values.service.internalPort }}
          initialDelaySeconds: {{ .Values.livenessProbe.initialDelaySeconds }}
          periodSeconds: {{ .Values.livenessProbe.periodSeconds }}
          successThreshold: {{ .Values.livenessProbe.successThreshold }}
          timeoutSeconds: {{ .Values.livenessProbe.timeoutSeconds }}
        readinessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: {{ .Values.probePath }}
            port: {{ .Values.service.internalPort }}
          periodSeconds: {{ .Values.readinessProbe.periodSeconds }}
          successThreshold: {{ .Values.readinessProbe.successThreshold }}
          timeoutSeconds: {{ .Values.readinessProbe.timeoutSeconds }}
        resources:
{{ toYaml .Values.resources | indent 12 }}
      terminationGracePeriodSeconds: {{ .Values.terminationGracePeriodSeconds }}

Sample project values.yaml contains this:

env:
  - name: MY_ENV
    value: "some_staging_value"

Sample environment-xxxx-production values.yaml contains this:

env:
- name: MY_ENV
  value: some_production_value

I can certainly get the preview and staging environment variables working. However, when I promote the application to the production environment, the env list in environment-xxxx-production does not override the env list in the values.yaml file inside of the project itself.

Answer 1

Worth noting that, as of today, the syntax seems to have changed.

When creating an app with jx create quickstart, if we look at the deployment template (your-app/charts/your-app/templates/deployment.yaml) it shows that the env section of the deployment is populated as follows:

        env:
{{- range $pkey, $pval := .Values.env }}
        - name: {{ $pkey }}
          value: {{ quote $pval }}
{{- end }}

This means that in the values.yaml file, present in your GitOps repos for staging, production and in your defaults in the app repo; your custom ENV variables should be added as:

your-app:
  env:
    MY_ENV_VAR: "Staging value for MY_ENV_VAR"

Where "your-app" is the name of your app, matching what is in requirements.yaml, as James explained in his answer.

Answer 2

the key in the production values.yaml file needs to be the name of the chart you use in the requirements.yaml - thats how helm does composed charts.

so if your app is called cheese in requirements.yaml try using this in the values.yaml

cheese:
  env:
  - name: MY_ENV
    value: some_production_value