StarlingX Application Package Manager

Use the StarlingX system application commands to manage containerized application deployment from the command-line.

StarlingX application management provides a wrapper around FluxCD and Kubernetes Helm (see https://github.com/helm/helm) for managing containerized applications. FluxCD is a tool for managing multiple Helm charts with dependencies by centralizing all configurations in a single FluxCD YAML definition and providing life-cycle hooks for all Helm releases.

A StarlingX application package is a compressed tarball containing a metadata.yaml file, a manifest.yaml FluxCD manifest file, and a charts directory containing Helm charts and a checksum.md5 file. The metadata.yaml file contains the application name, version, and optional Helm repository and disabled charts information.

StarlingX application package management provides a set of system CLI commands for managing the lifecycle of an application, which includes managing overrides to the Helm charts within the application.

Table 1. Application Package Manager Commands

Command	Description
application-list	List all applications.
application-show	Show application details such as name, status, and progress.
application-upload	Upload a new application package. This command loads the application’s FluxCD manifest and Helm charts into an internal database and automatically applies system overrides for well-known Helm charts, allowing the Helm chart to be applied optimally to the current cluster configuration.
helm-override-list	List system Helm charts and the namespaces with Helm chart overrides for each Helm chart.
helm-override-show	Show a Helm chart’s overrides for a particular namespace. This command displays system overrides, user overrides and the combined system and user overrides.
helm-override-update	Update Helm chart user overrides for a particular namespace.
helm-chart-attribute-modify	Enable or disable the installation of a particular Helm chart within an application manifest.
helm-override-delete	Delete a Helm chart’s user overrides for a particular namespace.
application-apply	Apply or reapply the application manifest and Helm charts. This command will install or update the existing installation of the application based on its FluxCD manifest, Helm charts and Helm charts’ combined system and user overrides.
application-abort	Abort the current application operation.
application-update	Update the deployed application to a different version.
application-remove	Uninstall an application.
application-delete	Remove the uninstalled application’s definition, including manifest and Helm charts and Helm chart overrides, from the system.