Define Watches in Helm-based operators

Specification for the watches.yaml file in Helm-based operators.

The Watches file contains a list of mappings from custom resources, identified by it’s Group, Version, and Kind, to a Helm chart. The Operator expects this mapping file in a predefined location: /opt/helm/watches.yaml

The follow tables describes the fields in an entry in watches.yaml:

Field	Description
group	The group of the Custom Resource that you will be watching.
version	The version of the Custom Resource that you will be watching.
kind	The kind of the Custom Resource that you will be watching.
chart	The path to the helm chart to use when reconciling this GVK.
watchDependentResources	Enable watching resources that are created by helm (default: `true`).
overrideValues	Values to be used for overriding Helm chart’s defaults. For additional information see the reference doc.
selector	The conditions that a resource’s labels must satisfy in order to get reconciled. For additional information see labels and selectors documentation.
dryRunOption	The helm dry-run method to use when comparing manifests. Set to `server` to ensure `lookup()` functions are evaluated (default: `client/none`)

For reference, here is an example of a simple watches.yaml file:

# Use the 'create api' subcommand to add watches to this file.
- group: foo.example.com
  version: v1alpha1
  kind: Foo
  chart: helm-charts/foo
  overrideValues:
    image.repository: quay.io/mycustomrepo
  watchDependentResources: false
  selector:
    matchExpressions:
     - {key: testLabel, operator: Exists, values: []}
  dryRunOption: server

Last modified June 4, 2025: Document helm operator dryrunOption (#6958) (7c570e27)