Helm Based Addons

Overview

Minikube supports creating addons that are deployed via Helm charts. This allows for more complex applications to be managed as addons. This guide will walk you through creating a Helm-based addon.

For a general overview of creating addons, please see the Creating a new addon guide first. This guide focuses on the specifics of Helm-based addons.

Creating a Helm-based addon

Creating a Helm-based addon is very similar to creating a standard addon, with a few key differences in how the addon is defined.

1. Define the Addon in pkg/minikube/assets/addons.go

The core of a Helm-based addon is the HelmChart struct within your Addon definition. You will define your addon in pkg/minikube/assets/addons.go.

Here is an example of what a Helm-based addon definition looks like:

"my-helm-addon": NewAddon(
    []*BinAsset{}, // Usually empty for pure Helm addons
    false,
    "my-helm-addon",
    "Your Name",
    "",
    "path/to/your/addon/docs.md",
    map[string]string{
        // Optional: Define images for caching if not in the chart
    },
    map[string]string{
        // Optional: Define registries for images
    },
    &HelmChart{
        Name:      "my-helm-addon-release",
        Repo:      "oci://my-repo/my-chart",
        Namespace: "my-addon-namespace",
        Values: []string{
            "key1=value1",
            "key2=value2",
        },
        ValueFiles: []string{
            // Paths to values files inside the minikube VM
        },
    },
),

HelmChart struct fields:

• Name: The release name for the Helm installation (helm install <release-name>).
• Repo: The Helm chart repository URL (e.g., stable/chart-name or oci://my-repo/my-chart).
• Namespace: The Kubernetes namespace to install the chart into. The --create-namespace flag is always used.
• Values: A slice of strings for setting individual values via --set (e.g., key=value).
• ValueFiles: A slice of strings pointing to paths of YAML value files inside the minikube VM. These are passed to Helm with the --values flag.

When the addon is enabled, minikube will automatically ensure the helm binary is installed within the cluster and then run helm upgrade --install with the parameters you have defined. When disabled, it will run helm uninstall.

2. Add the Addon to pkg/addons/config.go

To make your addon visible to minikube addons list and enable it to be managed, you need to add an entry for it in pkg/addons/config.go.

{
    name:      "my-helm-addon",
    set:       SetBool,
    callbacks: []setFn{EnableOrDisableAddon},
},

3. Testing your Helm Addon

To test your new addon, rebuild minikube and enable it:

make && ./out/minikube addons enable my-helm-addon

You can then verify that the Helm chart was deployed correctly using kubectl.

kubectl -n my-addon-namespace get pods