Helmfile: `needs:` Can't check for a release to be existent in another Helmfile

[Vad1mo]

I created a pod monitor that needs monitoring/prometheus-operator to be existant.

However Helmfile tells that the release doesn't exist: in ./helmfile.yaml: "kube-system/prometheus-operator-monitors" depends on nonexistent release "monitoring/prometheus-operator"

I created monitoring/prometheus-operator in another Helmfile.

- name: prometheus-operator-monitors
    namespace: kube-system
    chart: incubator/raw
    labels:
      component: prometheus-operator-monitors
      namespace: monitoring
    force: true
    needs:
      - kube-system/traefik
      - monitoring/prometheus-operator
    values:
      - resources:
          - apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
            kind: PodMonitor
            metadata:
              name: prometheus-traefik-pods-monitor
              labels:
                release: prometheus-operator
            spec:
              podMetricsEndpoints:
                - path: /metrics
                  port: traefik
              namespaceSelector:
                any: true
              selector:
                matchLabels:
                  app: traefik

helm ls -A 
NAME                            NAMESPACE       REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART                       APP VERSION
cert-manager                    cert-manager    19          2020-04-06 16:52:55.804433 +0200 CEST   deployed    cert-manager-v0.14.1        v0.14.1    
cert-manager-issuers            cert-manager    18          2020-04-06 16:53:05.31225 +0200 CEST    deployed    raw-0.2.3                   0.2.3      
loki                            monitoring      3           2020-04-06 00:35:45.771259 +0200 CEST   deployed    loki-stack-0.34.0           v1.4.0     
monitoring-certificates         monitoring      9           2020-04-06 16:53:15.887974 +0200 CEST   deployed    raw-0.2.3                   0.2.3      
prometheus-operator             monitoring      10          2020-04-06 16:53:21.816099 +0200 CEST   deployed    prometheus-operator-8.12.9  0.37.0     
prometheus-operator-ingresses   monitoring      5           2020-04-06 16:54:09.683268 +0200 CEST   deployed    raw-0.2.3                   0.2.3      
prometheus-operator-monitors    monitoring      2           2020-04-06 00:41:25.441866 +0200 CEST   deployed    raw-0.2.3                   0.2.3      
traefik                         kube-system     1           2020-04-06 16:58:30.388683 +0200 CEST   deployed    traefik-7.2.0               2.2.0  

[mumoshu]

Each sub-helmfile is isolated so you can't refer to releases in another helmfile within needs.

[Vad1mo]

Understand. This explains the behavior.

[caleb15]

If we had each sub-helmfile in a single file it would be rather large. We're at 16 subfiles and growing. Is there a workaround that would allow us to keep them in seperate files?

I thought about ordering it in our main file like so:

helmfiles:
  - path: "releases/foo.yaml"
  - path: "releases/Fah_that_requires_foo.yaml"

but I'm not sure if the keys of helmfiles are guaranteed to be operated in order from top to bottom :thinking:

[mumoshu]

@caleb15 Sub-helmfiles are processed in the order of definition on apply/sync/etc, and in the opposite order on delete/destroy.

[caleb15]

Thanks, to clarify by in the order of definition you mean that with something like this:

helmfiles:
  - path: "a.yaml"
  - path: "b.yaml"
  - path: "c.yaml"

when you run a sync a would be processed first, then b, then c, correct?

[mumoshu]

@caleb15 Yes

[caleb15]

Sweet, thanks!