helmfile-release-environment-bug

Issues

Simple list with environment

Here we are listing releases for the development environment

Expectation: only the redis release is listed

helmfile --environment development list

With Helmfile version 0.0.0-dev, specifically main branch @ 9af8f1286a7d3804fffe5ee0fbf5e661f23c3693, all releases are returned even without a matching environment

NAME            NAMESPACE       ENABLED INSTALLED       LABELS  CHART                   VERSION
database        my-app          true    true                    bitnami/postgres        11.6.22
cache           my-app          true    true                    bitnami/redis           17.0.7 

With helmfile version v0.145.2, we get the expected result

NAME    NAMESPACE       ENABLED INSTALLED       LABELS  CHART           VERSION
cache   my-app          true    true                    bitnami/redis   17.0.7 

Similarly for the test release

Expectation: only the postgres release is listed

helmfile --environment test list

With Helmfile version 0.0.0-dev, specifically main branch @ 9af8f1286a7d3804fffe5ee0fbf5e661f23c3693, all releases are returned even without a matching environment

NAME            NAMESPACE       ENABLED INSTALLED       LABELS  CHART                   VERSION
database        my-app          true    true                    bitnami/postgres        11.6.22
cache           my-app          true    true                    bitnami/redis           17.0.7 

With helmfile version v0.145.2, we get the expected result

NAME            NAMESPACE       ENABLED INSTALLED       LABELS  CHART                   VERSION
database        my-app          true    true                    bitnami/postgres        11.6.22

NOTE: this is not restricted to the list command, other commands are also affected.

list with Helmfile State Values

Similar to above, but supplying state values via --state-values-set, using the current release of Helmfile: v0.145.2

Expectation: only the redis release is listed

helmfile --environment development --state-values-set example=value list

With helmfile version v0.145.2

NAME            NAMESPACE       ENABLED INSTALLED       LABELS  CHART                   VERSION
database        my-app          true    true                    bitnami/postgres        11.6.22
cache           my-app          true    true                    bitnami/redis           17.0.7 

Again, the situation with the test environment is the same, i.e. all releases are listed.

Root Cause

The change to the behaviour where releases for environments other than the requested one has been git bisected down and found to be a result of Use cobra

Digging into this, a.Set used to be nil without state values set, however the switch to Cobra changed this to an empty map[string]interface{}, which is then always added to the opts.Environment.OverrideValues. This results in a mismatching environment being entirely ignored, templating being applied to all helmfiles/releases using the specified environment anyway, and all releases being returned.

This helps to confirm the reason for the other observed case: prior to the Cobra change, the same behaviour is observed if any helmfile state values are supplied. In both cases, environment override values are applied, and this causes non-applicable releases (based on environment) to be included.