Changelog

v0.2.0

I am happy to announce the second release of the Argo CD ApplicationSet controller, v0.2.0. Many new features were contributed as part of this release, including support for combining generator parameters, support for building Argo CD Applications based on GitHub/GitLab organizations, and support for using custom resources to select clusters, plus oft requested improvements to existing generators, and of course doc updates, usability improvements, stability fixes, and more.

You can learn more about this from the ApplicationSet documentation or check out the source and learn how you can contribute.

Contributors

Many many thanks to all the folks who have contributed to the ApplicationSet controller over the past few months. These many contributions, both big and small, general and specific, help to bring a more featureful and polished experience to Argo CD users. We could not do this without all of you!

Omer Kahani (@OmerKahani)
Joshua Packer (@jnpacker)
Jonathan West (@jgwest)
Noah Kantrowitz (@coderanger)
Lior Lieberman (@LiorLieberman)
Michael Matur (@mmatur)
TJ Miller (@teejaded)
John Thompson (@empath-nirvana)
Ishita Sequeira (@ishitasequeira)
Chetan Banavikalmutt (@chetan-rns)
William Tam (@wtam2018)
John Watson (@dctrwatson)
Tencho Tenev (@tenevdev)
Ryan Umstead (@rumstead)
Stephan Auerhahn(@palp)
Christian Hernandez (@christianh814)
Mohit Kumar Sharma (@mksha)
Vivien Fricadel (@vivienfricadelamadeus)
Gareth Western (@gdubya)
William Jeffries (@williamcodes)
Mehran Poursadeghi (@mehran-prs)

Want to join us for our next release? Check out the project repository (https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset) or visit us on #argo-cd-appset on Slack (https://argoproj.github.io/community/join-slack/).

New in this Release

Matrix generator

The Matrix generator is a new generator that combines the parameters generated by two child generators, iterating through every combination of each generator's set:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
metadata:
  name: cluster-git
spec:
  generators:
    - matrix: # 'Parent' Matrix Generator
        generators:
          - git: # 'Child' generator A
              repoURL: https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset.git
              revision: HEAD
              directories:
                - path: examples/matrix/cluster-addons/*
          - clusters: # 'Child' generator B
              selector:
                matchLabels:
                  argocd.argoproj.io/secret-type: cluster
  template:
  # (...)

The parameters generated by a Git generator (looking for directories within a Git Repository), and by a Cluster generator (looking for Argo CD-managed clusters), are combined: this will generate Argo CD Applications that target each of the Git directories (containing Kubernetes manifests), for each cluster managed by Argo CD.

See the Matrix generator documentation for an in-depth example of how generator parameters are combined. Contributed by @OmerKahani.

SCM Provider generator

The SCM Provider generator is a new generator that utilizes the API of GitHub/GitLab to automatically discover repositories within an organization, allowing the repository values to be used for targeting generated Argo CD Applications. This fits well with GitOps layout patterns that split microservices across many repositories, rather than those patterns that stick to a single repository (which can be handled by other ApplicationSet generators).

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
metadata:
  name: myapps
spec:
  generators:
  - scmProvider:
      github:
        organization: myorg         # The GitHub organization to scan.
        tokenRef: { } # Reference to a Secret containing an access token. (optional)
  template:
  # ...

The ApplicationSet controller will then scan the provided GitHub/GitLab organization and produce template parameters for each discovered repository/branch, which may be used to generate Argo CD Applications for each of these repositories.

See the SCM Provider generator documentation for more information. Initial implementation and GitHub support contributed by @coderanger, and GitLab support contributed by @empath-nirvana.

Cluster Decision Resource generator

The Cluster Decision Resource generator is a new generator that generates a list of Argo CD clusters based on the contents of an external custom resource (CR), with that custom resource managed by an external controller. With the Cluster Decision Resource generator, you may 'outsource' the logic (of which clusters to target) to third party controllers/CRs, such as the Open Cluster Management's Placements.

This is handled seamlessly using duck-typing, which does not require knowledge of the full shape of the referenced Kubernetes resource. The following is an example of a cluster-decision-resource-based ApplicationSet generator:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
metadata:
 name: guestbook
spec:
 generators:
 - clusterDecisionResource:
    # ConfigMap with GVK information for the duck type resource
    configMapRef: my-configmap      
    name: quak  # Choose either "name" of the resource or "labelSelector"

Which might reference an external resource named quak, managed by an external controller, containing a list of clusters:

apiVersion: mallard.io/v1beta1
kind: Duck
metadata:
  name: quak
spec: {}
status:
  decisions:   # Duck-typing ignores all other aspects of the resource except the "decisions" list
  - clusterName: cluster-01
  - clusterName: cluster-02

See the Cluster Decision Resource generator documentation for more information. Cluster Decision Resource generator and labelSelector support contributed by @jnpacker.

Preserve Application child resources on deletion of parent ApplicationSet

By default, Applications created and managed by the ApplicationSet controller include the Argo CD resource deletion finalizer. This means that when an ApplicationSet is deleted, its child Applications will be deleted, as well as the cluster resources of those child Applications. This is the same behaviour as a cascade delete within Argo CD.

However, this behaviour is not always desirable: one may want to preserve the Application child resources on deletion of the parent Application. To enable this, using the .spec.syncPolicy.preserveResourcesOnDeletion value in the parent ApplicationSet:

kind: ApplicationSet
spec:
  generators:
    - clusters: {}
  template:
    # (...)
  syncPolicy:
    # Don't delete Application's child resources, on parent deletion:
    preserveResourcesOnDeletion: true

See the Application Deletion Behaviour documentation for more information. Contributed by @mmatur.

Add YAML configuration file support to Git File generator

In the previous ApplicationSet release, only JSON-formatted configuration files were supported by the Git File generator. Now, both JSON and YAML files are supported, and may be used interchangeably. Contributed by @teejaded.

Allow any key/value pair in List generator

The List generator previously only supported a fixed list of cluster name/URL values, with an optional values field for user-defined values. You can now specify any key/value pair:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
spec:
 generators:
 - list:
     elements:
     # current form, still supported:
     - cluster: engineering-dev
       url: https://kubernetes.default.svc
       values:
         additional: value
     # new form, does not require cluster/URL keys:
     - staging: true
       gitRepo: https://kubernetes.default.svc   
 template:
   # (...)

This new form is fully backwards compatible with existing v0.1.0-originated ApplicationSets, and no migration steps are needed. See the List generator documentation for more information. Contributed by @ishitasequeira.

Added additional path params to Git File generator

The Git File generator now produces {{ path }} and {{ path.basename }} parameters, containing the path of the configuration file, similar to the same parameters already produced by the Git Directory generator. Contributed by @ishitasequeira.

Add exclude path support to Git directories

The Git Directory generator scans directories within a Git repository, looking for directories that match specific criteria. However, with the previous ApplicationSet release, there was no way to exclude folders from the scan.

The ability to exclude individual paths from being scanned is now supported:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
metadata:
  name: cluster-addons
spec:
  generators:
  - git:
      repoURL: https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset.git
      revision: HEAD
      directories:
      # Include this first path 
      - path: examples/git-generator-directory/excludes/cluster-addons/* 
      # But, exclude this second path:
      - path: examples/git-generator-directory/excludes/cluster-addons/exclude-helm-guestbook
        exclude: true

Contributed by @LiorLieberman.

Quality of Life Improvements

Git Directory generator should ignore all folders starting with '.' (#201, contributed by @LiorLieberman)
Add support for custom 'finalizers' in Application templates (#289, contributed by @tenevdev)
Enable the ability to set log level on ApplicationSet controller startup (#249, contributed by @rumstead)
Add 'appset/appsets' shortnames to the ApplicationSet CRD (#184, contributed by @christianh814)
Log appset version during controller startup log (#241, contributed by @chetan-rns)

Fixes, infrastructure, and docs

Fixes:

Race condition on cluster creation/deletion causes unexpected behaviour (#198, contributed by @jgwest)
Sanitize cluster name param by replacing unsupported character (#237, contributed by @chetan-rns)
Remove the unused SkipPrune from ApplicationSetSyncPolicy (#268, contributed by @ishitasequeira)
ApplicationSets that initially fail validation might not be re-reconciled (#296, contributed by @jgwest)
Remove unnecessary RBAC permissions 'delete events' and 'update events' that are not available at namespace level (#278, contributed by @vivienfricadelamadeus)
Issue 170 is not solved when using server, only when using name for destination (#282, contributed by @jgwest)
Check path exists passed in application spec (#253, contributed by @mksha)
Handle conversion to string in git generator (#235, contributed by @chetan-rns)
Add git-lfs to resolve error using files generator (#215, contributed by @palp)
Preserve ArgoCD Notification state (#193, contributed by @dctrwatson)
Matrix generator's getParams should check error return to avoid panic (#326, contributed by @jgwest )
Add missing generators to supported Matrix child generators (#328, contributed by @jgwest)

Test/infrastructure improvements:

Use a fixed version of Kustomize in the Makefile to generate manifests (#207, contributed by @jgwest)
Intermittent E2E test failure on TestSimpleGitFilesPreserveResourcesOnDeletion (#229, contributed by @jgwest)
Write additional tests for repo_service.go (#226, contributed by @jgwest)
Add more cluster e2e tests (#148, contributed by @OmerKahani)
Rebase go.mod to latest Argo CD v2.0, adopt new APIs as needed, and retest (#281, contributed by @jgwest)
TestGetFileContent test is failing when running go test, on Mac (#246, contributed by @jgwest)
Update build scripts to target 'argoproj/applicationset' on quay.io (#242, contributed by @jgwest)
Automatically build and push a container image to argoproj/argocd-applicationset:latest on each master commit (#256, contributed by @jgwest)
Split generators into separate doc pages, plus general doc updates (#267, contributed by @jgwest)
Use image-push target to build and push an image (#264, contributed by @chetan-rns)
Update Argo CD dependency to latest, and update changed APIs (#310, contributed by @jgwest)
Increment version for next release (#188, contributed by @jgwest)
Use a fixed version of controller-gen in the Makefile to generate manifests (#233 contributed by @jgwest)
Update Dockerfile to latest Argo CD base and better cleanup apt dependencies #302, contributed by @jgwest)
Add GITHUB_TOKEN and GITLAB_TOKEN to actions and test secrets (#320)

Doc updates:

Document the policy parameter of the controller (#297, contributed by @jgwest)
Update documentation to mention development builds (#263, contributed by @jgwest)
Add a note regarding use of set-based requirements (#228, contributed by @gdubya)
Refresh README.md based on new documentation (#191, contributed by @jgwest )
Fix minor grammar mistake in README (#217, contributed by @williamcodes)
Correct list generator syntax (#204, contributed by @gdubya)
Update Generators-Git.md
Tweak List and Git generator docs (#333, contributed by @jgwest)
Generator updates, upgrade instructions, and misc updates (#313, contributed by @jgwest)

Installation

The ApplicationSet controller must be installed into the same namespace as the Argo CD it is targeting:

kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset/v0.2.0/manifests/install.yaml

Once installed, the ApplicationSet controller requires no additional setup. You can learn more about ApplicationSet controller installation from the Getting Started page.

v0.1.0

I am excited to announce the first release of the Argo CD ApplicationSet controller, v0.1.0, releasing now alongside Argo CD v2.0!

The ApplicationSet controller provides the ability:

To deploy Argo CD Applications to multiple Kubernetes clusters at once
To deploy multiple Argo CD applications from a single monorepo
Allows unprivileged cluster users (those without access to the Argo CD namespace) to deploy Argo CD applications without the need to involve cluster administrators in enabling the destination clusters/namespaces

BUT, best of all, all these features are controlled by only a single ApplicationSet Kubernetes custom resource, which means no more juggling of multiple Argo CD Application resources to target those multiple clusters/repos!

Unlike with an Argo CD Application resource, which deploys resources from a single Git repository to a single destination cluster/namespace, ApplicationSet uses templated automation to create, modify, and manage multiple Argo CD applications at once.

You can learn more about this from the ApplicationSet documentation or check out the source and learn how you can contribute.

Since this is our first release, we would ❤️ if you would give ApplicationSets a shot, and let us know what cool problems you are solving with it, or what pain points you hit. Got feature requests, bug reports, or want to contribute code? Let us know on our project repository, or join us on #argo-cd-appset on Slack.

Contributors

A great deal of work has gone into bringing this project to life, from many different contributors, all the way from its inception in early 2020 until today. It is terrific to be able to bring all that work together as ApplicationSet's first release, and make it available to a wider audience… we welcome you to try it out, and let us know what you think! A big thanks to all ApplicationSet controller contributors for their hard work over the last year, whether it be contributing code, writing design documentation, performing code reviews, writing user documentation, and opening issues and PRs:

Omer Kahani (@OmerKahani)
Devan Goodwin (@dgoodwin)
Michael Goodness (@mgoodness)
Alexander Matyushentsev (@alexmt)
Jonathan West (@jgwest)
Matteo Ruina (@maruina)
Jesse Suen (@jessesuen)
Xianlu Bird (@xianlubird)
William Tam (@wtam2018)
Ratnadeep Debnath (@rtnpro)
John Pitman (@jopit)
Shoubhik Bose (@sbose78)
Alex Sharov (@kvendingoldo)
Omer Levi Hevroni (@omerlh)

The ApplicationSet controller would not exist without the contributions of these talented individuals! 🎉️

New in this Release

List Generator

The List generator generates parameters based on a fixed list of cluster name/URL values, with those values passed as parameters into the template. This allows manual control over Application destinations via editing of a literal list with the ApplicationSet.

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: ApplicationSet
spec:
 generators:
 - list:
     elements:
     - cluster: engineering-dev
       url: https://kubernetes.default.svc
#    - cluster: engineering-prod
#      url: (another cluster API url)
 template:
   spec:
     project: default
     source:
       repoURL: https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset.git
       targetRevision: HEAD
       path: examples/list-generator/guestbook/{{cluster}}
     # (...)

In this example, if one wanted to add a second cluster, we could uncomment the second cluster element and the ApplicationSet controller would automatically target it with the defined application.

Cluster Generator

The cluster generator is useful if you are using Argo CD to manage cluster add-ons, such as Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) or Ingress Controllers, across a fleet of clusters. Instead of manually creating an application for each cluster, you can delegate it to the cluster generator.

In Argo CD, managed clusters are stored within Secrets in the Argo CD namespace. The ApplicationSet controller uses those same Secrets to generate template parameters for which to target available clusters.

The Cluster generator will automatically identify clusters defined with Argo CD, and extract the cluster data as parameters:

kind: ApplicationSet
spec:
  generators:
  - clusters: {} # Automatically use all clusters defined within Argo CD
  template:
    metadata:
      name: '{{name}}-guestbook' # 'name' field of the cluster
    spec:
      source: 
        # (...)
      destination:
        server: '{{server}}' # 'server' field of the cluster
        namespace: guestbook

Git Directory Generator

It is a good practice to define a convention between Argo CD application name and the location of the deployment manifests directory with the Git repository. For example, you might choose to store all manifests of production applications under "applications/prod/" and all staging applications under "applications/staging/".

The Git Directory generator allows you to go one step further and "codify" that convention. The Git directory generator generates template parameters using the directory structure of a specified Git repository. Whenever a new subfolder is added to the Git repository, the ApplicationSet controller will detect this change and automatically use the subfolder path to template an Argo CD application containing the manifests contained within that folder (whether they be plain YAML, Kustomize, Helm, etc).

kind: ApplicationSet
spec:
  generators:
  - git:
      repoURL: https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset.git
      revision: HEAD
      directories:
      - path: examples/git-generator-directory/cluster-addons/*
# (...)

Git File Generator

Similar to the Directory generator, the Git File generator allows you to generate applications based on Git repository content but provide a bit more flexibility. The Git file generator generates template parameters using the contents of JSON files found within a specified repository. Git commits containing changes to JSON files are automatically discovered by the Git generator, and the contents of those files are parsed and converted into template parameters.

This allows the creation of custom Argo CD Applications based on the contents of automatically discovered JSON files within the repository. As new files are added/changed, new Argo Applications are created or modified.

kind: ApplicationSet
spec:
  generators:
  - git:
      repoURL: https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset.git
      revision: HEAD
      files:
      - path: "examples/git-generator-files-discovery/cluster-config/**/config.json"

Brand new documentation and examples

The ApplicationSet controller has a brand new set of documentation and examples. Topics include introduction, a quick getting started guide, use cases, the interaction with Argo CD, generators, template fields, application lifecycle, and more.

Template Override

In addition to specifying a template within the .spec.template of the ApplicationSet resource, templates may also be specified within generators. This is useful for overriding the values of the spec-level template with generator-specific values.

spec:
  generators:
  - list:
      elements:
        - cluster: engineering-dev
          url: https://kubernetes.default.svc
      template: # <--- A template under a list generator
        metadata: {}
        spec:
          project: "default"
          source:
            revision: HEAD
            repoURL: https://github.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset.git
            # New path value is generated here:
            path: 'examples/template-override/{{cluster}}-override'
          destination: {}

Support for arbitrary key/value pairs in Cluster generator and List generator

Arbitrary key/value pairs may be included within the Cluster and List generators, which will be converted into template parameters during template rendering. This is useful for providing custom parameters for a specific generator instance:

spec:
  generators:
  - clusters:
      values:
        version: '2.0.0'

Bugs, tests, and infrastructure improvements

In addition to the above new features, we delivered lots of bug fixes, new unit tests, a new end-to-end test framework, new end-to-end tests, a new release process, and build/test infrastructure improvements.

Installation

The ApplicationSet controller must be installed into the same namespace as the Argo CD it is targetting:

kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj-labs/applicationset/v0.1.0/manifests/install.yaml

Once installed, the ApplicationSet controller requires no additional setup. You can learn more about ApplicationSet controller installation from the Getting Started page.

Changelog

Features:

Add item list CRD Spec (#1)
Sketch out cluster generator in the CRD, and generator interface (#2)
Add list generator support (#3)
Add git directory crd (#4)
Add git directory generator (#7)
Cluster Generator reconciling on cluster secret events (#8)
Create applications (#9)
feat(cluster-generator): allow templating of app labels (#24)
feat(cluster-generator): support matchExpressions in selectors (#25)
Improve controller error handling and logging. (#42)
Implement Git files discovery (#45)
add SyncPolicy (#48)
Add dry run option (#50)
add requeueAfter option (#51)
Add template override (#56)
Add support to metadata.annotations in the template (#58)
feat(cluster-generator): support arbitrary key:value pairs (#91)
Add support for support arbitrary key:value pairs in ListGenerator (#110)
Kustomize integration of Application Set controller and Argo CD (#113)

Docs and examples:

'User guide' docs: the whats/whys/hows of ApplicationSet controller documentation (#84)
'User guide' docs: how to use ApplicationSet controller (examples of generators, template fields) documentation (#85)
User guide docs: how to use ApplicationSet controller, whats/whys/hows, examples (#117)
Improve and document the developer deployment process. (#37)
Expand on existing developer docs: how to setup dev env and how to run ApplicationSet controller on local machine (#74) (#90)
Making examples more clear (#111)
Add readthedocs/mkdocs integration to the documentation (#130)
Fix template-overrides-example.yaml (#144)

Tests:

Add build and test GH action, fix TestGetApps race condition (#83) (#64)
Implement E2E test framework for testing ApplicationSet against live Kubernetes/Argo CD instance (#65) (#66)
Intermittent test failure in 'TestGitGenerateParamsFromFiles/handles_error_during_getting_repo_file_contents' (#96)
Add E2E tests for the git file generator (#138)
Write tests for pkg/utils/util.go (#146)
Write tests for clustereventhandler.go (#147)

Bugs:

fix(list-generator): return generated applications (#21)
Fix rbac error listing Secrets at cluster scope. (#38)
Fix missing Application RBAC. (#39)
Log warning if applicationset contains unrecognized generators (#67)
The --namespace controller param and NAMESPACE environment variable should override to produce one canonical value (#70) (#109)
Cluster generator cannot select local cluster (#116)
Fix leader election (#125)
Git Directory Generator only matches directories that contain valid Helm/ksonnet/Kustomize artifacts (#132)
Prevent ApplicationSet controller from creating invalid Applications, causing 'unable to delete application resource' in Argo CD (#136)
Git generator may never detect new commits, if using default 'GetRequeueAfter' value (#137)
'Error generating params' error when using JSON array in Git files generator file (#139)
'appprojects.argoproj.io is forbidden' error from serviceaccount argocd-applicationset-controller (#141)
Applicationset-controller overloads api-server and have memory leak (#153)
Annotations set in application-set not updating apps (#156)
Git helpers missing from image (#160)
ApplicationSet does not support private repos configured using SSH (#163)
Workaround Argo CD cluster deletion reconciliation bug (#170)

Tasks:

Update applications & add owner reference (#10)
Refactor the create application method so it will also do update and delete. (#11)
Reorg manifests & create kustomizations (#20)
Refactor - Making testing & writing generators more easy (#26)
Drop cluster-wide RBAC install and fix finalizer permissions issue. (#53)
Add Apache 2 LICENSE file. (#54)
Refine ApplicationSet SyncPolicy API to be less like ArgoCD. (#55)
Fix make deploy step (#60)
Add go fmt workflow, and go fmt the code (#62)
Add .golangci.yml from Argo CD, and fix corresponding linter failures (#63)
Raise error for duplicate application names (#69)
Sync go.(mod/sum) with argo-cd 1.8 release (#89)
Re-bootstrap of the project using kubebuilder 2 (#93)
Add 'lint-go' and 'go mod tidy' to GitHub actions (#95)
Setup release build scripts/artifacts for ApplicationSet controller releases (#105)
Kustomize Argo CD integration (and GitHub E2E test action) should use a fixed Argo CD version (#119)
Use apiextensions.k8s.io/v1 CustomResourceDefinition, rather than deprecated v1beta1 (#128)
Update test/generation Argo CD target version to v1.8.5 (#134)
Adopt same base image as Argo CD to fix vulnerability scan issues (#151)

Files

CHANGELOG.md

Latest commit

History

CHANGELOG.md

File metadata and controls

Changelog

v0.2.0

Contributors

New in this Release

Matrix generator

SCM Provider generator

Cluster Decision Resource generator

Preserve Application child resources on deletion of parent ApplicationSet

Add YAML configuration file support to Git File generator

Allow any key/value pair in List generator

Added additional path params to Git File generator

Add exclude path support to Git directories

Quality of Life Improvements

Fixes, infrastructure, and docs

Fixes:

Test/infrastructure improvements:

Doc updates:

Installation

v0.1.0

Contributors

New in this Release

List Generator

Cluster Generator

Git Directory Generator

Git File Generator

Brand new documentation and examples

Template Override

Support for arbitrary key/value pairs in Cluster generator and List generator

Bugs, tests, and infrastructure improvements

Installation

Changelog

Features:

Docs and examples:

Tests:

Bugs:

Tasks: