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GitOps

GitOps is a set of practices to manage infrastructure and application configurations using Git, an open-source version control system. It works by using Git as a single source of truth for declarative infrastructure and applications.

1. The Core Concept

GitOps takes the principles of DevOps and applies them to infrastructure automation.

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Everything (K8s manifests, Terraform files) is stored in Git.
  • Single Source of Truth: If it's not in Git, it doesn't exist. If someone manually changes the cluster, the GitOps agent reverts it back to match Git.

2. Push vs. Pull Deployments

Push-Based (Traditional CI/CD)

The CI pipeline (Jenkins, GitHub Actions) builds the image and then runs a command (like kubectl apply) to push the deployment to the cluster.

  • Risk: The CI server needs admin access (credentials) to the production cluster.

Pull-Based (GitOps)

An agent running inside the cluster (like ArgoCD or Flux) watches the Git repository. When it sees a change (e.g., a new image tag in a YAML file), it pulls the change and applies it to the cluster.

  • Security: The cluster doesn't expose credentials outside. It only needs read access to the Git repo.

3. Key Principles

  1. Declarative: The entire system is described declaratively (YAML).
  2. Versioned & Immutable: The desired state is stored in Git. Changes are made via commits/PRs.
  3. Automated Delivery: Approved changes are automatically applied to the system.
  4. Continuous Reconciliation: Software agents continuously ensure the actual state matches the desired state.

4. Benefits

  • Easy Rollbacks: To rollback a deployment, you simply git revert the commit. The agent sees the old state and applies it.
  • Drift Detection: If someone manually edits a Kubernetes resource (Configuration Drift), the GitOps tool detects it and can automatically overwrite the manual change to restore the state from Git.
  • Audit Trail: Git history provides a perfect audit log of who changed what and when.

5. Common Tools

  • ArgoCD: A declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. Provides a nice UI to visualize sync status.
  • Flux: A set of continuous and progressive delivery solutions for Kubernetes that are open and extensible.

6. Progressive Delivery (Flagger)

Progressive Delivery is an advanced deployment strategy that builds upon GitOps and Continuous Delivery. It allows you to release new features to a small subset of users first, automatically validating them before a full rollout.

  • Flagger: A popular Kubernetes operator that automates the promotion of canary deployments. It works with service meshes (Istio, Linkerd) or ingress controllers (NGINX) to shift traffic.
  • Workflow:
    1. GitOps tool (ArgoCD/Flux) syncs the new deployment.
    2. Flagger detects the change and starts a Canary Analysis.
    3. It routes a small % of traffic to the new version.
    4. It checks metrics (Prometheus) like error rate and latency.
    5. If healthy, it increases traffic. If not, it rolls back automatically.

programming/kubernetes-basics programming/ci-cd-pipelines programming/cloud-native-concepts programming/devops

Created: March 17, 2026 • Last Modified: January 31, 2026