Nelm is a Helm 4 alternative. It is a Kubernetes deployment tool that manages Helm Charts and deploys them to Kubernetes. It is also the deployment engine of werf. Nelm does everything that Helm does, but better, and even quite some on top of it. Nelm is based on an improved and partially rewritten Helm codebase, to introduce:

terraform plan-like capabilities;
improved CRD management;
out-of-the-box secrets management;
advanced resource ordering capabilities;
advanced resource lifecycle capabilities;
improved resource state/error tracking;
continuous printing of logs, events, resource statuses, and errors during deployment;
fixed hundreds of Helm bugs, e.g. "no matches for kind Deployment in version apps/v1beta1";
performance and stability improvements and more.

The Nelm goal is to provide a modern alternative to Helm, with long-standing issues fixed and many new major features introduced. Nelm moves fast, but our focus remains on Helm Chart and Release compatibility, to ease the migration from Helm.

Nelm is production-ready: as the werf deployment engine, it was battle-tested across thousands of projects for years.

install

Install
Quickstart
CLI overview
Helm compatibility
Key features
Usage
- Encrypted values files
- Encrypted arbitrary files
Reference
Feature gates
More documentation
Limitations
Contributing
Special thanks
Future plans

Install

Follow instructions on GitHub Releases.

Quickstart

Create a directory for a new chart:
```
mkdir mychart
cd mychart
```

Create Chart.yaml with the following content:

apiVersion: v2
name: mychart
version: 1.0.0
dependencies:
- name: cert-manager
  version: 1.13.3
  repository: https://charts.jetstack.io

Generate Chart.lock:
```
nelm chart dependency download
```

Create values.yaml with the following content:

cert-manager:
  installCRDs: true
  startupapicheck:
    enabled: false

Deploy the first release:

nelm release install -n myproject -r myproject

Plan the second release with an increased number of replicas, where only a single field in a single Deployment will be updated:
```
nelm release plan install -n myproject -r myproject --set cert-manager.replicaCount=2
```

Deploy the second release, where only the Deployment will be updated:

nelm release install -n myproject -r myproject --set cert-manager.replicaCount=2

CLI overview

Release commands:
  release install                    Deploy a chart to Kubernetes.
  release rollback                   Rollback to a previously deployed release.
  release plan install               Plan a release install to Kubernetes.
  release uninstall                  Uninstall a Helm Release from Kubernetes.
  release list                       List all releases in a namespace.
  release history                    Show release history.
  release get                        Get information about a deployed release.

Chart commands:
  chart lint                         Lint a chart.
  chart render                       Render a chart.
  chart download                     Download a chart from a repository.
  chart upload                       Upload a chart to a repository.
  chart pack                         Pack a chart into an archive to distribute via a repository.

Secret commands:
  chart secret key create            Create a new chart secret key.
  chart secret key rotate            Reencrypt secret files with a new secret key.
  chart secret values-file edit      Interactively edit encrypted values file.
  chart secret values-file encrypt   Encrypt values file and print result to stdout.
  chart secret values-file decrypt   Decrypt values file and print result to stdout.
  chart secret file edit             Interactively edit encrypted file.
  chart secret file encrypt          Encrypt file and print result to stdout.
  chart secret file decrypt          Decrypt file and print result to stdout.

Dependency commands:
  chart dependency download          Download chart dependencies from Chart.lock.
  chart dependency update            Update Chart.lock and download chart dependencies.

Repo commands:
  repo add                           Set up a new chart repository.
  repo remove                        Remove a chart repository.
  repo update                        Update info about available charts for all chart repositories.
  repo login                         Log in to an OCI registry with charts.
  repo logout                        Log out from an OCI registry with charts.

Other commands:
  completion bash                    Generate the autocompletion script for bash
  completion fish                    Generate the autocompletion script for fish
  completion powershell              Generate the autocompletion script for powershell
  completion zsh                     Generate the autocompletion script for zsh
  version                            Show version.

Helm compatibility

Nelm is built upon the Helm codebase with some parts of Helm reimplemented. It is backward-compatible with Helm Charts an

Nelm

Install / Use

README

Table of Contents

Install

Quickstart

CLI overview

Helm compatibility