Camunda Helm Charts — Developer Docs
This site contains internal developer documentation for the camunda/camunda-platform-helm repository: the primary Helm chart for deploying Camunda 8 on Kubernetes.
Looking for end-user installation docs? See the official Camunda docs.
For all contributors
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Contribution & Collaboration | How to contribute — process, PR requirements, contribution rules |
| Policies | Breaking changes, backporting, values.yaml key classification, ticket & label |
For maintainers & HC owners
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Maintainer Guide | ADR process, PR review, crev, escalation policy |
| Release Process | How to cut a release, manage RCs, publish charts |
Reference
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Code Style | Helm, Go, and YAML style conventions |
| Testing | Unit tests, golden files, property tests, license headers |
| GitHub Actions Workflows | Overview of every CI/CD workflow |
Skills & Runbooks
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Reproducing CI E2E Failures | How to reproduce a failing CI E2E check locally |
| Integration Test Scenario Resolution | How deploy-camunda resolves Helm values for integration test scenarios |
Purpose of the Camunda Helm Chart
The Camunda Helm chart is the primary deployment mechanism for running Camunda 8 on Kubernetes. Its purpose is to abstract the complexity of Kubernetes manifests and Camunda's internal components, enabling users to perform installations and deployments with minimal Kubernetes expertise.
The chart provides a simple, reliable, and consistent way to configure and deploy Camunda while exposing only the most essential and commonly used configuration parameters.
Guiding Principles
The Helm charts are designed with the following principles:
- Expose configuration options that are common, minimal, and useful — maintaining a balance between simplicity and flexibility.
- Ensure each exposed configuration or feature results from a conscious, user-driven decision, validated by product management.
- Allow users to define specific or advanced configuration in a clear, extensible, and generic manner outside of the chart defaults.
- Maintain a 1:1 mapping between application configuration and Helm values, wherever possible.
- Establish reasonable defaults and facilitate configuration of common deployment scenarios, avoiding unnecessary complexity.
What the Camunda Helm Chart is NOT
The chart has defined boundaries to maintain clarity, consistency, and long-term maintainability. It is not intended to:
- Expose arbitrary or exhaustive Camunda application configuration.
- Implement or promote opinionated solutions from individual engineers. Instead, it should provide generic and composable mechanisms that enable flexible and pluggable architectures.
- For example, it should not embed opinionated choices for monitoring, security, or identity management solutions. The chart should remain extensible through community and external tooling such as the Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA), security plugins, or GitOps integrations.
- Bundle or depend on external components that are not part of Camunda's core product (e.g. OpenSearch, Bitnami-based dependencies).
- Abstract away or bypass the intrinsic complexity of Camunda's architecture or its operational model.
- Serve as a mechanism to patch, override, or work around application-level issues or technical debt.
- Modify or override core application defaults unless a change aligns with Camunda's default behavior or best practices.
Release Lifecycle
Please refer to the Camunda Release Policy to learn about the release cadence, maintenance periods, and support lifecycle.
Contributing to These Docs
Documentation source files live in docs/ at the repo root. The Docusaurus project is in helm-docs-site/.
To run the docs site locally:
cd helm-docs-site
npm install
npm start
See helm-docs-site/README.md for full instructions.