Argocd Gitops

ArgoCD GitOps

GitOps workflows for Kubernetes deployments using ArgoCD.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Deploying applications via GitOps
• Managing ArgoCD applications
• Syncing or rolling back deployments
• Troubleshooting sync issues

ArgoCD CLI Setup

Login

# Login to ArgoCD server
argocd login argocd.example.com

# With SSO
argocd login argocd.example.com --sso

# Skip TLS verification (dev only)
argocd login argocd.example.com --insecure

# Check current context
argocd context

Application Management

List Applications

# All applications
argocd app list

# With output format
argocd app list -o wide
argocd app list -o json

# Filter by project
argocd app list -p myproject

# Filter by label
argocd app list -l team=backend

View Application

# Application details
argocd app get myapp

# Manifests
argocd app manifests myapp

# Diff against live
argocd app diff myapp

# History
argocd app history myapp

Application Health

# Check status
argocd app get myapp -o json | jq '.status.health.status'

# Resources status
argocd app resources myapp

# Events
argocd app logs myapp

Sync Operations

Sync Application

# Sync (apply Git state to cluster)
argocd app sync myapp

# Sync with prune (remove deleted resources)
argocd app sync myapp --prune

# Sync specific resources
argocd app sync myapp --resource :Deployment:myapp

# Dry run
argocd app sync myapp --dry-run

# Force sync (bypass hooks)
argocd app sync myapp --force

# Wait for sync completion
argocd app wait myapp

Sync Options

# Skip schema validation
argocd app sync myapp --validate=false

# Apply out-of-sync only
argocd app sync myapp --apply-out-of-sync-only

# Sync with timeout
argocd app sync myapp --timeout 300

Auto-Sync

# Enable auto-sync
argocd app set myapp --sync-policy automated

# With prune
argocd app set myapp --sync-policy automated --auto-prune

# Self-heal (revert manual changes)
argocd app set myapp --self-heal

# Disable auto-sync
argocd app set myapp --sync-policy none

Rollback

Rollback to Previous

# View history
argocd app history myapp

# Rollback to specific revision
argocd app rollback myapp <history-id>

# Rollback to previous Git commit
argocd app rollback myapp --revision HEAD~1

Rollback Strategies

# 1. Rollback ArgoCD history
argocd app history myapp
argocd app rollback myapp 5

# 2. Revert Git commit and sync
git revert HEAD
git push
argocd app sync myapp

# 3. Manual override then rollback
argocd app set myapp --revision <old-commit>
argocd app sync myapp

Multi-Environment Promotion

Typical Flow

# 1. Deploy to dev (auto-sync)
git commit -m "feat: new feature"
git push origin main
# ArgoCD auto-syncs dev

# 2. Promote to staging
argocd app set myapp-staging --revision $(argocd app get myapp-dev -o json | jq -r '.status.sync.revision')
argocd app sync myapp-staging

# 3. Promote to production (manual)
argocd app set myapp-prod --revision <staging-revision>
argocd app sync myapp-prod

Environment-Specific Overrides

# Set Helm values per environment
argocd app set myapp-prod --values-literal-file values-prod.yaml

# Set Kustomize overlay
argocd app set myapp-staging --kustomize-image nginx=nginx:1.25

Create Applications

From Git Repository

argocd app create myapp \
  --repo https://github.com/org/repo.git \
  --path k8s/overlays/production \
  --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
  --dest-namespace production \
  --project default

# With Helm
argocd app create myapp \
  --repo https://github.com/org/repo.git \
  --path charts/myapp \
  --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
  --dest-namespace production \
  --helm-set image.tag=v1.2.3

From Helm Repository

argocd app create myapp \
  --repo https://charts.example.com \
  --helm-chart myapp \
  --revision 1.2.3 \
  --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
  --dest-namespace production

Troubleshooting

Sync Failures

# Check sync status
argocd app get myapp

# View sync errors
argocd app get myapp -o json | jq '.status.conditions'

# Check resource status
argocd app resources myapp

# View logs
argocd app logs myapp

Common Issues

Force Refresh

# Refresh from Git
argocd app get myapp --refresh

# Hard refresh (invalidate cache)
argocd app get myapp --hard-refresh

Stuck Sync

# Terminate current sync
argocd app terminate-op myapp

# Force sync
argocd app sync myapp --force

Project Management

# List projects
argocd proj list

# Create project
argocd proj create myproject \
  --src https://github.com/org/* \
  --dest https://kubernetes.default.svc,production

# View project
argocd proj get myproject

Clusters

# List clusters
argocd cluster list

# Add cluster
argocd cluster add my-context

# Remove cluster
argocd cluster rm https://cluster.example.com

Notifications (Status Checks)

# Get app health for CI/CD
argocd app wait myapp --health --timeout 300

# Exit code for scripting
argocd app get myapp -o json | jq -e '.status.health.status == "Healthy"'

Quick Reference

# Deploy new version
argocd app set myapp --revision <commit-sha>
argocd app sync myapp --prune

# Check if healthy
argocd app wait myapp --health

# Quick rollback
argocd app history myapp
argocd app rollback myapp <id>

# Force refresh from Git
argocd app get myapp --hard-refresh
argocd app sync myapp

GitOps Best Practices

1. Never modify cluster directly - All changes through Git
2. Use ApplicationSets - For multi-cluster/environment
3. Enable auto-prune - Keep cluster clean
4. Use sync waves - For ordered deployments
5. Separate config repos - App code vs deployment config
6. Review before production - Manual sync gates

Related Skills

• k8s-deploy: For direct Kubernetes deployments
• git-workflow: For managing GitOps repos
• incident-response: For deployment-related incidents