gitops-principles-skill

GitOps is a declarative approach that uses Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure and application state. GitOps agents like ArgoCD continuously pull desired state from Git and automatically reconcile the live environment, enabling version control, auditability, and rollback capabilities absent in imperative, manual deployments.

Store declarative Kubernetes manifests in a Git repository, configure ArgoCD to watch that repo, and ArgoCD will automatically deploy and sync changes. Define ApplicationSet patterns for multi-environment overlays, enable continuous reconciliation, and use Git history for audit trails and rollbacks.

OpenGitOps defines four pillars: declarative desired state, versioned and immutable artifacts, pulled automation, and continuous reconciliation. These principles ensure infrastructure is reproducible, auditable, and resilient—enabling teams to manage complex Kubernetes environments reliably at scale.

Drift occurs when live cluster state diverges from Git declarations. Use ArgoCD's drift detection and sync status views, review recent Git commits and deployment logs, verify kubectl access to affected resources, and re-sync to restore desired state from the Git source of truth.

Yes. Multi-repo strategies separate application repos from infrastructure repos; environment overlays use Kustomize or Helm to parameterize manifests per environment. ArgoCD and Kargo support both patterns, enabling teams to scale deployments across dev, staging, and production safely.

Secure Git access with SSH keys or OIDC, enforce branch protection and code review, use immutable image digests, encrypt secrets in Git, and enable RBAC on ArgoCD. Git history provides automatic rollback by reverting commits; audit logs track all reconciliation events for compliance.