1. Install Flux CLI and Kind:

   $ brew reinstall flux kind
   $ kind --version && flux --version
   kind version 0.11.1
   flux version 0.25.3

2. Make Personal Access Token for creating repositories

   1. Generate new token
   2. Check all permissions under repo
   3. Copy PAT to buffer

3. Export env vars locally

   I've done this in advance. Use read -s during demo

   $ export GITHUB_TOKEN=[paste PAT]
   $ echo $GITHUB_TOKEN | wc -c
     41

4. Create local demo cluster

   $ kind create cluster
   (took 40s)

5. Simple bootstrap:

   the more complex your org is, the more complex your directory structure and patterns are

   there is no gold standard

   flux is not opinionated about how directories are structured, rather it tries to be as flexible as possible to accommodate different patterns

   $ flux bootstrap github \
     --owner scottrigby --personal \
     --repository flux-for-helm-users \
     --branch main \
     --path=clusters/dev
   (output)
   

6. Clone the newly created git repo to your local workspace

   $ cd ~/code/github.com/scottrigby \
     && git clone [email protected]:scottrigby/flux-for-helm-users.git \
     && cd flux-for-helm-users
   $ tree
   .
   └── clusters
       └── dev
           └── flux-system
               ├── gotk-components.yaml
               ├── gotk-sync.yaml
               └── kustomization.yaml
   
   3 directories, 3 files

7. Lets create a Helm release the most common way, using the Helm CLI

$ helm repo add podinfo https://stefanprodan.github.io/podinfo
$ helm upgrade -i my-release podinfo/podinfo \
  --set replicaCount=2 \
  --set logLevel=debug \
  --set serviceMonitor.interval=10s \
  --set ui.color='#fa0087'

8. Now lets convert that to declarative CRs that Flux understands

It's very easy with these commands:

$ helm get values my-release -oyaml > my-values.yaml
$ cat values.yaml
logLevel: debug
replicaCount: 2
serviceMonitor:
  interval: 10s
ui:
  color: '#fa0087'

$ flux create helmrelease app1 \
  --interval=10m \
  --source=HelmRepository/podinfo \
  --chart=podinfo \
  --chart-version=">4.0.0" \
  --values my-values.yaml \
  --export > ./clusters/dev/podinfo-helmrelease.yaml
$ cat clusters/dev/podinfo-helmrelease.yaml
---
apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2beta1
kind: HelmRelease
metadata:
  name: app1
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  chart:
    spec:
      chart: podinfo
      sourceRef:
        kind: HelmRepository
        name: podinfo
      version: '>4.0.0'
  interval: 10m0s
  values:
    logLevel: debug
    replicaCount: 2
    serviceMonitor:
      interval: 10s
    ui:
      color: '#fa0087'

9. Create a Source Custom Resource locally

   The Helm CLI reads your local repo info (created in step 7), but the Flux Helm controller in your cluster needs this info too. Provide it with another CRD. Flux makes this easy as well. Instead of helm add repo use flux create source helm:

   $ flux create source helm podinfo \
   --url=https://stefanprodan.github.io/podinfo \
   --interval=10m \
   --export > clusters/dev/source-helmrepo-podinfo.yaml
   $ cat clusters/dev/source-helmrepo-podinfo.yaml
   ---
   apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta1
   kind: HelmRepository
   metadata:
     name: podinfo
     namespace: flux-system
   spec:
     interval: 10m0s
     url: https://stefanprodan.github.io/podinfo

10. From this point on, you are now doing GitOps:

    $ git add .
    $ git commit -m 'Configure podinfo Helm Repo source and app1 Helm Release'
    $ git push

11. Cleanup demo cluster

    $ kind delete cluster