Helmfile - "needs" keyword has no effect

Question

I have been trying to make use of the keyword needs (following the doc) to control the order of installation of the releases.

Here is my helmfile:

helmDefaults:
  createNamespace: false
  timeout: 600

helmBinary: /usr/local/bin/helm

releases:
- name: dev-sjs-pg
  chart: ../helm_charts/sjs-pg
- name: dev-sjs
  chart: ../helm_charts/sjs
  needs: ['dev-sjs-pgg']

Regarding versions:

• helmfile version v0.139.9
• helm version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.5.4", GitCommit:"1b5edb69df3d3a08df77c9902dc17af864ff05d1", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.15.11"}

When I run helmfile sync , both releases are installed simultaneously. In particular, there is no error due to my spelling error (dev-sjs-pgg instead of dev-sjs-pg). It is like needs is just not read.

Could you help me understanding what I am doing wrong please ?

Answer 1

I tried to reproduce this. When executing helmfile --log-level=debug sync I see in the debug log:

processing 2 groups of releases in this order:

GROUP RELEASES
1     dev-sjs-pg
2     dev-sjs

I also see these are deployed one after another (just a few seconds difference because I am deploying a fast nginx chart):