Helmfile Secrets Not Created in Namespace During Deployment

Question

I'm using Helmfile to deploy my own Helm chart along with PostgreSQL, but I'm running into an issue where secrets are not being created in the namespace at all. This causes PostgreSQL and Redis to fail because they expect existing secrets for credentials.

Setup My deployment consists of the following:

• A primary Helm chart
• A bitnami PostgreSQL database chart
• Secret values managed using Helm Secrets with SOPS

helm/
  project/
    helmfile.yaml
    environments/
      base/
        secrets.yaml
        another-secret.yaml
        values.yaml
      prd/
        secrets.yaml
        another-secret.yaml
        values.yaml
      acc/
        secrets.yaml
        another-secret.yaml
        values.yaml
      dev/
        secrets.yaml
        another-secret.yaml
        values.yaml
    charts/
    templates/
    .sops.yaml
    Chart.lock
    Chart.yaml

• The base/ directory holds default values.
• Each environment-specific directory contains its own secrets and values.

Issue

• I specify the existingSecret and key name in values.yaml.
• Secrets are encrypted using helm secrets (SOPS) and should be decrypted at runtime.
• However, when deploying with helmfile sync, the secrets do not get created in the namespace.
• Even if the pods fail due to missing secrets, the secrets are still absent.
• Running helm secrets decrypt works fine, and I can see the decrypted values.

Example Values, Secrets and helmfile

#base values
MyPostgres:
  auth:
    existingSecret: "database-credentials-mypostgres"
    secretKeys:
      adminPasswordKey: "admin-password"
      userPasswordKey: "user-password"
    username: "myusername"
    database: "my_db"

#environment values
MyPostgres:
  primary:
    resources:
      requests:
        ...
      limits:
        ...

#decrypted secret file
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
    name: database-credentials-mypostgres
type: Opaque
stringData:
    admin-password: admin-pass
    user-password: user-pass

#helm file
environments:
  dev: {}
  acc: {}
  prd: {}

releases:
...
    values:
      - environments/base/values.yaml
      - environments/{{ .Environment.Name }}/values.yaml
    secrets:
      - environments/base/secrets.yaml
      - environments/{{ .Environment.Name }}/secrets.yaml
...

Question

Why are my secrets not being created at all? How can I make sure Helmfile properly initializes them before dependent charts like PostgreSQL and Redis attempt to use them?

Any insights or debugging tips would be greatly appreciated!