Improve documentation for use case HelmRelease pointing to Gitrepository

[srgvg]

Describe the bug

Currently, the use case of a HelmRelease pointing to GitRepository is not well documented. This might be improved for clarity.

Steps to reproduce

Had to look that up[ to move the now defunct Helm repository https://helm.gitops.weave.works/index.yaml to it's source Git repository https://github.com/weaveworks/weave-gitops-enterprise/tree/main/charts/mccp and didn't find a precies example, but needed to find out from different other contexts.

Expected behavior

Have a full detailed example added to the docs for this use case

Screenshots and recordings

No response

OS / Distro

Flux version

Flux check

Git provider

Container Registry provider

Additional context

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[darkowlzz]

Hi, would this https://fluxcd.io/flux/components/source/helmcharts/#source-reference have helped?
Since HelmChart is embedded in HelmRelease, the docs at https://fluxcd.io/flux/components/helm/helmreleases/#chart-template point to the HelmChart docs which contain more docs and examples.

[srgvg]

I actually looked at HelmChart to find more details on how I should implement it, so yes, that helped. Especially https://fluxcd.io/flux/components/source/helmcharts/#chart

This ticket/remark is just to point out, the exact info is a bit scattered out, and an exact example would be useful.

It's a use case for https://helm.gitops.weave.works/index.yaml currently being down :-)

[kingdonb]

Would it have helped at all if you found this doc:

https://fluxcd.io/flux/flux-e2e/#using-a-gitrepository-backed-or-s3-backed-helmrelease

I haven't looked at this one in a long time, but I remember putting the juice maker analogy in here because we were trying to discourage the use of GitRepository as a source for HelmReleases without due consideration being applied.

Since many people will just take a large GitRepository full of helm charts and host them from there, if that was an option, and not thinking about it, would not realize the terrible performance situation that they'd be creating by doing that.

It's definitely a useful feature to have around in a pinch, or in your dev environment, but we should definitely find a way to re-publish those charts in an OCI repo, and get the docs back online, where we can point people at them.

(That's not an issue for Flux, but...)

[srgvg]

I did had a feeling I once read an example in the docs, but having it in the e2e docs is of course hard to find.

Good point about the performance, I had no idea of this. If an example of this is added in the main docs, that should obviously be mentioned there.

I don't know if that performance issue is mentioned anywhere else?

[saylerb]

Not sure if you happened across the section 'Manage Helm Releases' of the docs under "Guides" https://fluxcd.io/flux/guides/helmreleases/#git-repository. I do think information about how to use GitRepository for charts is a little scattered, but I personally found this particular section most helpful to me.

As far as whether or not this is a good idea for production or scales well - that seems to be a different issue.