[badLiveware]

ArgoCD + Helm

But really any kind of reconciler, e.g. flux or argo with helm works very well. Helm is only used as a templating tool, i.e. helm template is the only thing allowed. It works very well and I've ran production systems for years without major issues.

I dont really understand how people have so much trouble with Helm, granted yaml whitespace + go templating is sometimes awful, it is the least bad tool out there that I have tried and once you learn the arcane ways of {{- its mostly a non-issue.

I would recommend writing your own charts for the most part and using external charts when they are simple, or well proven. Most applications you want to run arent that complicated, they are mostly a collection of environment variables, config files, and arguments.

If I could wish for a replacement of helm, it would be helm template with the chart implemented in a typed language, e.g. TypeScript, instead of go template but backwards compatible with go template.