gitops-workflow

GitOps Workflow - ArgoCD and Flux CD Automated Deployment Guide

Skills Overview

GitOps Workflow provides a complete guide for implementing Kubernetes declarative continuous delivery using ArgoCD and Flux CD, covering best practices from installation and configuration to multi-cluster management and progressive releases.

Use Cases

Automated Deployment for Kubernetes Clusters

You need to establish a Git-based single source of truth for Kubernetes environments, enabling declarative management of applications and infrastructure. All changes must be triggered by committing to Git.

Unified Management for Multi-Cluster Environments

When you need to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters simultaneously (production, staging, and development), GitOps enables a unified deployment strategy of “change once, apply everywhere.”

Implementing Progressive Release Strategies

You need to achieve progressive delivery strategies such as canary releases and blue-green deployments. Configure ArgoCD Rollouts or Flux to gradually shift traffic and automatically roll back.

Core Features

Complete Installation and Configuration of ArgoCD

Provides a full installation process for ArgoCD on Kubernetes, including namespace creation, applying manifests, retrieving initial passwords, and configuration examples for Application and the App of Apps pattern. Supports automated sync policy configuration, including prune, selfHeal, and retry mechanisms.

Flux CD GitOps Workflow

Covers Flux CLI installation and GitHub bootstrapping, as well as creating GitRepository and Kustomization resources. Supports automatically pulling configuration from a Git repository and continuously reconciling the cluster state.

Progressive Releases and Secret Management

Integrates ArgoCD Rollouts to enable canary and blue-green deployments, supporting weight-based traffic shifting and pause strategies. Provides two secret management solutions—External Secrets Operator and Sealed Secrets—to ensure sensitive information is not stored directly in the Git repository.

FAQs

How should ArgoCD and Flux CD be chosen?

Both are mature GitOps tools. The choice mainly depends on team preferences and the existing technology stack. ArgoCD offers a visual Dashboard, making it more suitable for teams that want an intuitive management UI. Flux CD uses pure YAML configuration, aligning with the “everything as code” philosophy and suiting teams that prefer command-line operations. In terms of capabilities, ArgoCD’s UI and Rollouts plugin are more comprehensive, while Flux’s Kustomization integration is more native.

How can secrets be managed securely in GitOps?

Never commit plaintext secrets to a Git repository. Two recommended approaches are: External Secrets Operator, which can sync secrets from external secret management services such as AWS Secrets Manager and Azure Key Vault; and Sealed Secrets, which encrypts secrets with a public key and commits the encrypted result to Git, where only the private key inside the cluster can decrypt them. Both approaches ensure secret security and support versioned management.

When is GitOps not a good fit?

GitOps is not suitable for one-off manual deployment scenarios, cases where you cannot manage cluster access permissions, or when the deployment target is not Kubernetes. Additionally, if your team cannot accept the process constraint of “all changes must go through Git,” or if you need frequent manual intervention and debugging, GitOps may introduce extra operational cost.