Creating a NOTES.txt File

In this section we are going to look at Helm’s tool for providing instructions to your chart users. At the end of a helm install or helm upgrade, Helm can print out a block of helpful information for users. This information is highly customizable using templates.

To add installation notes to your chart, simply create a templates/NOTES.txt file. This file is plain text, but it is processed like as a template, and has all the normal template functions and objects available.

Let’s create a simple NOTES.txt file:

  1. Thank you for installing {{ .Chart.Name }}.
  3. Your release is named {{ .Release.Name }}.
  5. To learn more about the release, try:
  7.   $ helm status {{ .Release.Name }}
  8.   $ helm get all {{ .Release.Name }}

Now if we run helm install rude-cardinal ./mychart we will see this message at the bottom:

  1. RESOURCES:
  2. ==> v1/Secret
  3. NAME                   TYPE      DATA      AGE
  4. rude-cardinal-secret   Opaque    1         0s
  6. ==> v1/ConfigMap
  7. NAME                      DATA      AGE
  8. rude-cardinal-configmap   3         0s
  11. NOTES:
  12. Thank you for installing mychart.
  14. Your release is named rude-cardinal.
  16. To learn more about the release, try:
  18.   $ helm status rude-cardinal
  19.   $ helm get all rude-cardinal

Using NOTES.txt this way is a great way to give your users detailed information about how to use their newly installed chart. Creating a NOTES.txt file is strongly recommended, though it is not required.