Add a Helm Repo, Install a Release and Remove the Old One

Original Prepium guide · Written for Kubernetes v1.35 and checked against the official documentation on 6 October 2026. Use a disposable practice cluster. The commands below exist in both Helm 3 and Helm 4.

Helm releases: repositories, pinned chart versions and value overrides

A chart is a package of templates plus a values.yaml of defaults. Installing it creates a release: a named instance in one namespace, with a revision number that goes up on every upgrade. Almost every Helm exam question comes down to three things: which chart version you installed, which values you overrode, and which namespace the release lives in. Helm can tell you all three, so the skill is as much about checking as installing.

chart values.yaml  <  -f file(s), rightmost wins  <  --set key=value
                 \____________ merged ____________/
                               |
               rendered manifests  ->  release "bakery-dev", revision N, namespace X

1. Repositories are local bookmarks with a cached index

helm repo add acme https://charts.example.com
helm repo update
helm search repo acme/ --versions

The URL here is a placeholder; use any chart repository you can reach. repo add stores a name for the URL, and repo update downloads each repository's index into a local cache that helm search reads. Without --versions, search shows only the newest stable version of each chart; with it, every version gets its own line. Note the two version columns: CHART VERSION is the package version that --version selects, while APP VERSION describes the software inside.

2. Practise overrides on a chart you create

No repository needed: helm create builds a scaffold chart whose templates read keys such as replicaCount and podLabels. Look before you override:

helm create bakery
helm show values ./bakery | head -20
printf 'podLabels:\n  team: pastry\n' > bakery-dev.yaml
helm install bakery-dev ./bakery -n prepium-tutorial --create-namespace \
  -f bakery-dev.yaml --set replicaCount=3 --wait

Dots in --set walk into nested maps, so --set podLabels.team=pastry would equal the file above. When both forms set the same key, --set wins. For a repository chart you would write acme/bakery --version X.Y.Z in place of ./bakery; leaving out --version installs the newest stable version.

3. Ask Helm what it actually stored

helm list -n prepium-tutorial
helm list -A
helm get values bakery-dev -n prepium-tutorial
helm get values bakery-dev -n prepium-tutorial --all
kubectl -n prepium-tutorial get pods -L team

helm get values prints only what you supplied; --all prints the full computed set, defaults included. helm list works on the current namespace unless you pass -n or -A, and its CHART column shows name and chart version together.

4. Upgrade, then remove

helm upgrade bakery-dev ./bakery -n prepium-tutorial --reuse-values --set replicaCount=1
helm history bakery-dev -n prepium-tutorial
helm uninstall bakery-dev -n prepium-tutorial

--reuse-values keeps the previous release's values and merges your new override on top, so the team label survives. History shows revision 2. helm uninstall deletes the release's resources and its history; helm rollback is the tool if you only wanted to undo an upgrade.

Common mistakes

• Passing the app version to --version. Helm looks for a chart version with that number and reports that it cannot find it.
• Forgetting -n. The release "disappears" from helm list and helm uninstall cannot find it, because both only look in the current namespace.
• Skipping helm repo update. Search and install use the cached index, so a version published after your last update is invisible.
• A mistyped key such as --set replicacount=3. The templates read .Values.replicaCount, never the misspelt key, so the default stays; compare against helm show values before installing.

Cleanup: kubectl delete namespace prepium-tutorial and helm repo remove acme. References: Using Helm, helm install, helm search repo, helm get values. Next, try Kustomize overlays.