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🏗️ Create your own registry with Github

GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) provides a free and reliable way to host your own Helm charts.

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Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• A GitHub account
• Git installed on your machine
• Helm CLI installed (Installation guide)
• A GitHub Personal Access Token with write:packages permission

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Step 1: Set Up Your Repository

Create a new GitHub repository to host your Helm charts:

1. Go to GitHub and create a new repository (e.g., my-helm-charts)
2. Clone the repository locally:

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/my-helm-charts.git
cd my-helm-charts

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Step 2: Create Your Helm Chart

Generate a new Helm chart or prepare an existing one:

# Create a new chart
helm create my-sparkly-app

# Or copy an existing chart to your repository
# cp -r /path/to/existing/chart ./my-sparkly-app

This creates a basic chart structure:

my-sparkly-app/
├── Chart.yaml
├── values.yaml
├── templates/
│   ├── deployment.yaml
│   ├── service.yaml
│   └── ...
└── charts/

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Step 3: Configure Your Chart

Edit the Chart.yaml file to include proper metadata:

apiVersion: v2
name: my-sparkly-app
description: A Helm chart for my sparkly application
type: application
version: 1.0.0
appVersion: "1.0.0"
home: https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/my-helm-charts
sources:
  - https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/my-helm-charts
maintainers:
  - name: Your Name
    email: your.email@example.com

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Step 4: Package Your Chart

Package your Helm chart into a .tgz file:

helm package my-sparkly-app

This creates a file like my-sparkly-app-1.0.0.tgz.

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Step 5: Login to GHCR

Authenticate with GitHub Container Registry using your Personal Access Token:

echo $GITHUB_TOKEN | helm registry login ghcr.io -u YOUR_USERNAME --password-stdin

Replace $GITHUB_TOKEN with your actual token and YOUR_USERNAME with your GitHub username.

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Step 6: Push Your Chart

Push your packaged chart to GHCR:

helm push my-sparkly-app-1.0.0.tgz oci://ghcr.io/YOUR_USERNAME/helm-charts

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Step 7: Verify your registry

After pushing, your chart will be available at:

oci://ghcr.io/YOUR_USERNAME/helm-charts/my-sparkly-app

You can verify the upload by checking your GitHub repository’s “Packages” tab.

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Step 8: Add your registry to Ankra

Now that your chart is published, add your GHCR registry to Ankra:

1. Go to the Add-ons section in your Ankra Platform
2. Click “Manage Sources”
3. Add your GHCR registry URL: `