Proposal: Move the Tekton Operator Helm chart to a dedicated repository

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
30/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
github-actions, helm, kubernetes
Domain
ci-cd, devops, release

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are named in the proposal. Start by reviewing the existing Helm chart and its current release process, then document ownership, version compatibility, migration, and distribution decisions. Done means maintainers have agreed on the repository, release, testing, and migration plan.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

kind/feature

Feature request

I would like to propose moving the Tekton Operator Helm chart into a dedicated repository—for example:

github.com/tektoncd/operator-helm-chart

The goal is to isolate the Helm chart from the operator source code and make it a standalone installation and distribution method.

Motivation

A dedicated repository could provide several benefits:

  • Make the chart easier to discover, use, test, and maintain.
  • Allow contributors to work on the chart without navigating the complete operator codebase.
  • Give the chart its own release lifecycle and versioning strategy.
  • Provide clearer documentation focused specifically on Helm-based installation.
  • Simplify automated chart validation, packaging, and publishing.
  • Make the chart easier to distribute through services such as Artifact Hub.

Distribution

As part of this work, we should define how the chart will be released and distributed to the wider community. This could include:

  • Publishing the chart as an OCI artifact to ghcr.io.
  • Listing the chart on Artifact Hub.
  • Signing releases and publishing provenance information.
  • Automating chart testing and publishing through GitHub Actions.
  • Documenting the relationship between the chart version and the Tekton Operator version.

For example, users could install the operator from an OCI registry with:

helm install tekton-operator \
  oci://ghcr.io/tektoncd/charts/tekton-operator \
  --version <version>

The OCI repository could also be consumed directly by GitOps tools such as Flux.

Compatibility and ownership

Before separating the chart, we would need to agree on:

  • Who maintains and reviews chart changes.
  • How chart changes are tested against Operator releases.
  • Whether chart and Operator versions should remain aligned.
  • How breaking changes are communicated.
  • How existing chart users are migrated to the new repository and registry location.

Contribution

I would be happy to help with this work, including:

  • Creating or restructuring the Helm chart repository.
  • Improving the chart structure and documentation.
  • Adding chart tests and release automation.
  • Setting up OCI publishing.
  • Preparing the chart for listing on Artifact Hub.
  • Documenting installation through Helm and GitOps tools such as Flux.

If the maintainers are open to this direction, I would be glad to help prepare a more detailed implementation and migration plan.

Dominant language
Go
Stars
606
Forks
270
Avg merge
1d 7h
Merged PRs (30d)
159

Getting set up

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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