proposal to make values filed in skaffold.yaml generate an override values.yaml

[louis-murray]

Currently skaffold will set override values defined in setValues through the --set flag of helm. I think it would be better to also have a way to generate an override values.yaml to handle this. There's some limitations with using --set like overriding contents of an array or other complex/nested overrides. I've also seen it cause issues with long strings that contain double quotes. I think that the values field would be a good candidate for this. Currently, it's non-intuitive to be able to only set image related values via the values field, noted in #193.

I think this could also potentially address #500.

I'd also be happy to put in the leg work to add this functionality if you guys think it's a good feature to add :)

Proposed behavior

use values field in skaffold.yaml to populate override values through an override values.yaml

Actual behavior

can only populates values through --set via setValues or values, if it's image related

Information

• Skaffold version: HEAD
• Operating system: macOS
• Contents of skaffold.yaml:

apiVersion: skaffold/v1alpha2
kind: Config
build:
  tagPolicy:
    sha256: {}
    gitCommit: {}
  artifacts:
  - imageName: dummy.imagerepo.net
    workspace: server
    docker: {}
  local: {}
deploy:
  helm:
    releases:
    - name: test-release
      chartPath: charts/test
      namespace: testing
<!-- currently it's like -->
      values:
        images.server: dummy.imagerepo.net/test-image
<!-- proposing to change to something like -->
      values:
        images:
         server: dummy.imagerepo.net/test-image
        info:
         - can do this too

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. create a skaffold.yaml using helm and include values field

[enriched]

I think that this partially addresses #500, but in order to assign a tag that has been defined via tagPolicy would you need #783 as well?

[nkubala]

@enriched yes you're right, we'd need to expose the generated tag in order to template it in the values file. we're still unclear on the best approach for doing that though.

[nkubala]

going to close this since it was fixed with #632