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Helm: The Complete Course

Go from container deployment basics to sophisticated application packaging and templating with Helm. Learn to create reusable charts, manage complex deployments, and automate Kubernetes application lifecycle management with the industry's leading package manager.
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94 Lectures

Comprehensive Knowledge

10.5 Hours

Video Duration

30+ Labs

Focus on Practice

Course Certificate

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What you are going to learn

Transform Your Kubernetes Skills: From Manual Deployments to Automated, Scalable Application Management

This course takes you from understanding why Helm exists to confidently building and managing production-ready charts. You will start by mastering the fundamentals: finding and installing charts, customizing deployments, upgrading and rolling back releases. Then you will advance to creating your own charts, writing dynamic templates with conditionals, loops, and named templates, managing multi-service applications through subcharts and dependencies, and publishing charts for others to use.

By the end of this course, you will be able to package any Kubernetes application as a reusable, configurable Helm chart, manage complex multi-environment deployments with clean templating practices, and extend your workflow with plugins for diffing, testing, and visualization. You will have the skills to confidently own Helm in a real team environment.

By completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Understand how Helm simplifies managing Kubernetes applications and when to use it versus Kustomize
  • Discover and evaluate application packages from public repositories
  • Install, configure, and manage complete applications with dependencies
  • Upgrade applications to new versions and roll back when problems occur
  • Create custom Helm charts from scratch with proper structure and metadata
  • Implement dynamic manifests using Go templating syntax and operators
  • Publish custom charts to public repositories for sharing and reuse
  • Apply advanced templating functions, named templates, and validation strategies
  • Build and integrate subcharts as dependencies with parent charts
  • Manage chart lifecycles with Helm hooks at installation, upgrade, and deletion stages
  • Extend Helm with plugins including Dashboard, Diff, and Unit Test capabilities

Course Contents

Frequently asked questions

Who is this course designed for?

This course is designed for multiple technical roles:

Software Engineers and Developers who want to automate application deployments and package their services for consistent deployment across environments will gain the skills to create reusable Helm charts and manage complex multi-component applications with simple commands.

DevOps Engineers and Platform Engineers seeking to standardize application deployment practices and improve consistency across teams will learn how to create and maintain organization-wide Helm charts, implement validation strategies, and leverage advanced features like hooks and subcharts for sophisticated deployment orchestration.

Kubernetes Operators and Cloud Infrastructure Professionals managing production clusters will understand how to evaluate community charts, implement customization strategies, establish secure deployment pipelines, and leverage Helm's plugin ecosystem for enhanced visibility and testing.

Technical Leads and Architects evaluating package management solutions for their organizations will gain the deep technical knowledge needed to understand Helm's capabilities, limitations, and appropriate use cases compared to alternative tools like Kustomize.

What prior knowledge do I need before taking this course?

You should have basic familiarity with Kubernetes concepts including Pods, Deployments, Services, and ConfigMaps. Comfortable experience working with command-line tools is highly recommended, as you will extensively use kubectl and Helm command-line interfaces.

Prior experience with YAML configuration files and understanding of how Kubernetes manifests are structured will significantly help. No prior knowledge of Helm, templating, or package management is required. The course starts from fundamentals and builds progressively through hands-on exercises, though understanding why Kubernetes deployments can become complex will help you appreciate why Helm exists.

Will I incur costs (cloud provider or tools) while taking this course?

The entire course can be completed using free, open-source tools. All core Helm functionality is free and unlimited.

Free Components:
  • Helm command-line tool and all official plugins (completely free and open source)
  • Minikube or local Kubernetes environments (free options available)
  • Docker Desktop (free for personal and small business use)
  • Public chart repositories including Artifact Hub (free)
  • GitHub Pages for hosting custom charts (free)

Does this course cover Docker and Kubernetes fundamentals?

This course assumes you have basic Kubernetes knowledge including understanding Pods, Deployments, Services, and ConfigMaps. If you are not familiar with Kubernetes, make sure to check my complete Docker and Kubernetes course, which covers all the foundational concepts for both Docker and Kubernetes.

The focus is on how Helm manages and packages these Kubernetes resources rather than on foundational Kubernetes concepts. If you are new to Kubernetes, consider gaining basic familiarity with core concepts before starting this course, as this will help you understand why Helm is so valuable for managing complex deployments.

Can I use what I learn in this course with production systems?

Absolutely. This course focuses entirely on practical, production-ready skills including proper chart structure, configuration management, validation strategies, testing approaches, and deployment best practices. You will learn how to create charts that follow community standards, implement security configurations, manage sensitive data appropriately, and use advanced features like hooks and plugins for robust deployments.

The course covers real-world scenarios including upgrading applications, rolling back failed deployments, managing complex dependencies with subcharts, and validating deployments before applying changes to production systems. By the end of the course, you will have the knowledge and experience needed to create Helm charts for production use and manage sophisticated application deployments in real environments.