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Understanding Helm Hooks: A Guide to Using Hooks in Your Helm Charts

Alex Vazquez
4 min readOct 7, 2024

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Helm, the package manager for Kubernetes, is a powerful tool for managing complex Kubernetes applications. One of its advanced features is Helm hooks. Hooks allow you to intervene at different points of a Helm operation, such as before or after an install, upgrade, or delete. In this article, we’ll dive into the available hooks, explore how to define them in your Helm charts, and provide use cases for each.

What Are Helm Hooks?

Helm hooks are special annotations that can be added to resources in a Helm chart. These hooks trigger specific actions during the release lifecycle of a Helm chart. They enable developers to perform tasks like setting up prerequisites, cleaning up after an operation, or validating a deployment.

Available Helm Hooks and Use Cases

Helm provides several hooks that can be used at different stages of a Helm operation. Here’s a breakdown of the available hooks:

1. pre-install

Execution Timing: After templates are rendered but before any resources are created in Kubernetes.
Use Case: Imagine you need to create a ConfigMap or secret that your application relies on but isn’t part of the main chart. The pre-install hook can create this…

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Alex Vazquez
Alex Vazquez

Written by Alex Vazquez

PSG Senior Architect at TIBCO Software with a focus on Cloud Development, Event Processing and Enterprise Integration

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