`skaffold build` should build and push Helm charts

[briandealwis]

Request from @eshepelyuk on our #skaffold channel: Skaffold should support creating a Helm package (.tgz), and to also push a chart to a registry.

Skaffold already generates a Helm package (a .tgz file) as a side-effect of branding the chart with a version or appVersion, but this is only done on deploy and the package is written out to $TMPDIR. This requires deploying the chart to a cluster, but @eshepelyuk does not actually want to the chart.

Helm 3.7 introduced helm push to push the package to an OCI-compliant registry.

---

I propose the following:

1. The skaffold.yaml's deploy.helm.releases.packaged should support two additional fields:
   1. local should specify a local directory (created if necessary) where packages should be saved locally.
   2. repo should specify a remote repository to which to push the packages.
2. When packages.repo is set and build.local.push = true, then skaffold build (not deploy) should build and save and push Helm packages. This destination should be affected by --default-repo.
3. Since helm install / helm upgrade is always run locally for the deploy, the Helm package should always be created locally even when the build-environment is set to GCB or a cluster build.
4. The pushed chart should be recorded in the artifacts.json.

[eshepelyuk]

Great explanation, thank you.

[aantn]

I would love this feature too. We're doing some hacks right now with sed to build Helm charts ourselves with images from skaffold build

[tejal29]

Removing the traige/discuss label. Right now, the team does not have bandwidth to work on this. Happy to accept contributions or DD.

[zarinfam]

It would be a great feature.

[leanrobot]

+1 I would use this feature as well

[aantn]

If anyone wants a workaround for this, you can see how we're handling it for robusta.dev here:

https://github.com/robusta-dev/robusta/blob/1873bb990ad66aef2d4f5fd0fe22a17cc3ec7114/.github/workflows/release.yaml

Would still love this as skaffold feature of course!

[ievgenii-shepeliuk]

If anyone wants a workaround for this, you can see how we're handling it for robusta.dev here:

https://github.com/robusta-dev/robusta/blob/1873bb990ad66aef2d4f5fd0fe22a17cc3ec7114/.github/workflows/release.yaml

Would still love this as skaffold feature of course!

Do you know that there's no need to patch Chart.yaml ? You can use --version and --app-version flag while calling helm package to set proper versions in the resulting TGZ.

[aantn]

@ievgenii-shepeliuk ah that's cool! Thank you!

[MarlonGamez]

Coming in here to just update and mention that while we don't have the bandwidth on our team to prioritize this right now, anyone is welcome to write up a design for us to review and possibly go forward with. @briandealwis has provided a decent base to work off of in his original comment

[ghost]

Hi @MarlonGamez any movement on this issue? I understand that the team does not have the bandwidth, but just curious to know if this might have been tackled in another duplicate ticket. Thank you for a great tool that helps bridge the gap between devs, tools and ops.

[aaron-prindle]

Adding this as a discussion item for our teams triage meeting next Mon (1/23). Currently adding this feature isn't prioritized for the team or a part of our milestones in the near future. One potential workaround here would be to create a [lifecycle hook] (https://skaffold.dev/docs/pipeline-stages/lifecycle-hooks/) that calls necessary helm package commands