Optionally build index.yaml in an idempotent fashion

[colearendt]

It would be nice if there were a way to "build an index.yaml from GitHub release metadata" in an idempotent fashion

In some cases, a git repository can get broken and mess up the index.yaml / the index.yaml gets out of sync with the git releases that are stored on GitHub. This happens most often when there are errors in the chart-releaser action - for instance, a submodule that did not clone properly, etc. From this scenario, it is non-trivial to build an index.yaml from the git release metadata.

It can also be a nice way to sanity check that the organically built / "pet" index.yaml matches up with git state.

We had a need for such work and wrote up a bash script to fit the bill in the short term: latest // permalink

We also wrote a GitHub action to allow triggering this adhoc when needed: latest // permalink

If it is useful to anyone in the meantime, shout out to @jonyoder who did the actual implementation 😄

NOTE: the script is not perfect and can modify an index.yaml / create duplicates in some cases. Further, it is not perfectly idempotent because timestamps will be updated. It is good enough for us at the moment, but would love to see a proper fix. An example PR: rstudio/helm#21

[fog1985]

I have just faced this issue as well.
Had index.yaml is fully spoiled.
There were a lot of old and non-existing releases already.
So clean it up manually. Would be nice to have it re-generated nicely with what is relevant and in accordance with the real repository releases.

[colearendt]

In particular, timestamps are concerning. However:

• The problem with timestamps seems to come from helm, where they use time.Now(). Called from chart-releaser here:
  

  chart-releaser/pkg/releaser/releaser.go

  Line 298 in 421d870

  if err := indexFile.MustAdd(c.Metadata, filepath.Base(arch), strings.Join(s, "/"), hash); err != nil {

• A related problem was discussed here and here with helm merge

I am going to mull over options for a way to pass this created timestamp to helm without changing the signature of MustAdd, although that seems unlikely 😢 It's also possible that chart-releaser could workaround somehow by modifying the created timstamps after helm's work, etc..., but that also has its own downsides (e.g. feeling very gross)