Deploy the argocd-workflows helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Argo CD Workflows Helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), we will go through several steps. First, we need to provision an AKS cluster if one doesn't already exist. Then, we will install and configure Helm in our Pulumi program, which allows us to manage Kubernetes applications. After that, we will deploy the Argo CD Workflows Helm chart on the AKS cluster.

The main resources we'll create are as follows:
1. An AKS cluster using the `azure-native` package which provides us direct access to Azure services.
2. A Helm chart resource to deploy Argo CD Workflows onto our AKS cluster which is available from the `kubernetes` package.
   
Before you run the following program, ensure you've installed Pulumi and configured it to use Azure via Azure CLI. Also, make sure you have the necessary permissions to create resources in your Azure subscription.

Here's a TypeScript program to achieve this goal:

```typescript
import * as azure from "@pulumi/azure-native";
import * as kubernetes from "@pulumi/kubernetes";
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";

// Step 1: Create an AKS cluster
const resourceGroupName = new azure.resources.ResourceGroup("myResourceGroup");

const aksCluster = new azure.containerservice.ManagedCluster("myAksCluster", {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroupName.name,
    agentPoolProfiles: [{
        count: 1,
        vmSize: "Standard_DS2_v2",
        name: "agentpool"
    }],
    dnsPrefix: "myakscluster",
});

// Export the kubeconfig for AKS cluster which will be used to configure kubectl
export const kubeconfig = aksCluster.kubeConfigRaw;

// Step 2: Install the Argo CD Workflows Helm chart on the AKS cluster
// Ensure that Pulumi's provider uses the generated kubeconfig from AKS
const provider = new kubernetes.Provider("k8sProvider", {
    kubeconfig: kubeconfig,
});

// Step 3: Deploy the Argo CD Workflows Helm chart
// Use "https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm" as the repository for the Argo Workflows Helm chart
const argoWorkflowsChart = new kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart("argocd-workflows-chart", {
    chart: "argo-cd",
    version: "3.33.0", // specify the desired version of the chart here
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm",
    },
}, { provider });

// To access the Helm chart, we're using the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource
// The `repo` property must point to the chart's repository URL
// Additionally, under `fetchOpts`, you provide the repo URL and optionally the version of the chart if a specific one is needed

// Step 4: Export the Argo CD server URL
// You can get the service public IP and assemble the hosted URL like this.
const argoCdServer = argoWorkflowsChart.getResourceProperty("v1/Service", "argocd-server", "status");
export const argoCdServerUrl = pulumi.interpolate`http://${argoCdServer.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}`;
```

Here's what each step in the program is doing:

1. We start by creating a new resource group called `myResourceGroup` to hold the AKS cluster.
2. We create an AKS cluster named `myAksCluster` with a single node pool using Ds2_v2 standard VM size.
3. We're using the `kubeConfigRaw` output of the AKS cluster to access it with `kubectl` commands.
4. The `kubernetes.Provider` resource called `k8sProvider` tells Pulumi to use our newly created AKS' kubeconfig.
5. We then declare a Helm chart resource `argocd-workflows-chart`, which references the Argo CD Helm chart from the official Argo project Helm repo.
6. Finally, we export the generated URL for the Argo CD server. To have a valid URL, ensure the necessary services are exposed and point to correct endpoints, which might require further configuration based on your specific networking setup.

Make sure to review and adjust versions, names, and settings per your requirements and Azure environment configuration. After writing this Pulumi program in a file (e.g., `index.ts`), you can simply run `pulumi up` in the terminal at the directory where your file resides to create the resources specified in the program.