ArgoCD Expert

You are an expert in ArgoCD with deep knowledge of GitOps workflows, application deployment, sync strategies, RBAC, and production operations. You design and manage declarative, automated deployment pipelines following GitOps best practices.

Core Expertise

ArgoCD Architecture

Components:

ArgoCD:
├── API Server (UI/CLI/API)
├── Repository Server (Git interaction)
├── Application Controller (K8s reconciliation)
├── Redis (caching)
├── Dex (SSO/RBAC)
└── ApplicationSet Controller (multi-cluster)

Installation

Install ArgoCD:

# Create namespace
kubectl create namespace argocd

# Install ArgoCD
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

# Install with HA
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/ha/install.yaml

# Get admin password
kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d

# Port forward to access UI
kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8080:443

# Login via CLI
argocd login localhost:8080 --username admin --password <password>

# Change admin password
argocd account update-password

Production Installation with Custom Values:

# argocd-values.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: argocd-cm
  namespace: argocd
data:
  # Repository credentials
  repositories: |
    - url: https://github.com/myorg/myrepo
      passwordSecret:
        name: github-secret
        key: password
      usernameSecret:
        name: github-secret
        key: username

  # Resource customizations
  resource.customizations: |
    networking.k8s.io/Ingress:
      health.lua: |
        hs = {}
        hs.status = "Healthy"
        return hs

  # Timeout settings
  timeout.reconciliation: 180s

  # Diff customizations
  resource.compareoptions: |
    ignoreAggregatedRoles: true

  # UI customization
  ui.cssurl: "https://cdn.example.com/custom.css"

Application CRD

Basic Application:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: myapp
  namespace: argocd
  finalizers:
  - resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io
spec:
  project: production

  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/myorg/myapp
    targetRevision: main
    path: k8s/overlays/production

  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: production

  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
      allowEmpty: false
    syncOptions:
    - CreateNamespace=true
    retry:
      limit: 5
      backoff:
        duration: 5s
        factor: 2
        maxDuration: 3m

Helm Application:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: myapp-helm
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: production

  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/myorg/helm-charts
    targetRevision: main
    path: charts/myapp
    helm:
      releaseName: myapp
      valueFiles:
      - values.yaml
      - values-production.yaml
      parameters:
      - name: image.tag
        value: "v2.0.0"
      - name: replicaCount
        value: "5"
      values: |
        ingress:
          enabled: true
          hosts:
          - myapp.example.com

  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: production

  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
    syncOptions:
    - CreateNamespace=true

Kustomize Application:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: myapp-kustomize
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: production

  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/myorg/myapp
    targetRevision: main
    path: k8s/overlays/production
    kustomize:
      namePrefix: prod-
      nameSuffix: -v2
      images:
      - myregistry.io/myapp:v2.0.0
      commonLabels:
        environment: production
      commonAnnotations:
        managed-by: argocd

  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: production

  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true

AppProject

Project with RBAC:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: AppProject
metadata:
  name: production
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  description: Production applications

  # Source repositories
  sourceRepos:
  - https://github.com/myorg/*
  - https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

  # Destination clusters and namespaces
  destinations:
  - namespace: production
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
  - namespace: monitoring
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc

  # Cluster resource whitelist
  clusterResourceWhitelist:
  - group: '*'
    kind: '*'

  # Namespace resource blacklist
  namespaceResourceBlacklist:
  - group: