Deleting Helm Chart Default Values
10 minHelm charts commonly provide default values in values.yaml, and many chart templates guard fields with truthy checks like {{- if .Values.foo }}.
The standard way to remove one of those defaults is to set the value to null — the equivalent of helm install --set foo=null on the Helm CLI. In this guide you'll see how to do that from every Pulumi language, including the valueYamlFiles approach required outside of TypeScript.
- How to remove a Helm chart default value by setting it to null
- How to use
valueYamlFilesto delete defaults from Python, Go, C#, Java, and YAML
- The Pulumi CLI
- A Pulumi Cloud account and an access token
- A Kubernetes cluster (for example, kind)
- helm
Helm charts commonly provide default values in values.yaml, and many chart templates guard fields with truthy checks like {{- if .Values.foo }}. The standard way to remove one of those defaults is to set the value to null — the equivalent of helm install --set foo=null on the Helm CLI.
TypeScript: set the key to null in the inline values map#
In TypeScript this is straightforward — set the key to null in the values map and it flows through to Helm:
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";
const nginx = new k8s.helm.v3.Release("nginx", { chart: "nginx", repositoryOpts: { repo: "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami", }, values: { containerPorts: { http: null, }, },});Other SDKs: use valueYamlFiles#
Inline null in the values map only works from TypeScript — other Pulumi SDKs strip null map values before they reach the provider. The valueYamlFiles path avoids this because the file content is shipped as a Pulumi Asset and parsed on the provider side. Put the explicit null in a yaml file and reference it:
containerPorts: http: null
Python
Go
C#
Java
YAMLimport pulumifrom pulumi_kubernetes.helm.v3 import Release, ReleaseArgs, RepositoryOptsArgs
nginx = Release( "nginx", ReleaseArgs( chart="nginx", repository_opts=RepositoryOptsArgs( repo="https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami", ), value_yaml_files=[pulumi.FileAsset("./overrides.yaml")], ),)package main
import ( helmv3 "github.com/pulumi/pulumi-kubernetes/sdk/v4/go/kubernetes/helm/v3" "github.com/pulumi/pulumi/sdk/v3/go/pulumi")
func main() { pulumi.Run(func(ctx *pulumi.Context) error { _, err := helmv3.NewRelease(ctx, "nginx", &helmv3.ReleaseArgs{ Chart: pulumi.String("nginx"), RepositoryOpts: helmv3.RepositoryOptsArgs{ Repo: pulumi.String("https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami"), }, ValueYamlFiles: pulumi.AssetOrArchiveArray{ pulumi.NewFileAsset("./overrides.yaml"), }, }) return err })}using Pulumi;using Pulumi.Kubernetes.Helm.V3;using Pulumi.Kubernetes.Types.Inputs.Helm.V3;
return await Deployment.RunAsync(() =>{ new Release("nginx", new ReleaseArgs { Chart = "nginx", RepositoryOpts = new RepositoryOptsArgs { Repo = "https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami", }, ValueYamlFiles = { new FileAsset("./overrides.yaml") }, });});package generated_program;
import com.pulumi.Pulumi;import com.pulumi.asset.FileAsset;import com.pulumi.kubernetes.helm.v3.Release;import com.pulumi.kubernetes.helm.v3.ReleaseArgs;import com.pulumi.kubernetes.helm.v3.inputs.RepositoryOptsArgs;
public class App { public static void main(String[] args) { Pulumi.run(ctx -> { new Release("nginx", ReleaseArgs.builder() .chart("nginx") .repositoryOpts(RepositoryOptsArgs.builder() .repo("https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami") .build()) .valueYamlFiles(new FileAsset("./overrides.yaml")) .build()); }); }}name: exampleruntime: yamlresources: nginx: type: kubernetes:helm.sh/v3:Release properties: chart: nginx repositoryOpts: repo: https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami valueYamlFiles: - fn::fileAsset: overrides.yamlOn the next pulumi up, the http default from the chart’s values.yaml is dropped and the containerPorts block is rendered without it.