Flux CD Cheat Sheet

GitOps toolkit for Kubernetes covering GitRepository/Kustomization/HelmRelease CRDs, the flux CLI, and multi-tenancy setup.

3 PagesIntermediateMar 1, 2026

Bootstrap Flux onto a Cluster

Installs Flux controllers and wires the cluster to a Git repo as the source of truth.

bash

flux check --pre                          # verify cluster prerequisitesflux bootstrap github \  --owner=my-org \  --repository=fleet-infra \  --branch=main \  --path=clusters/production \  --personalflux get all                              # list all Flux-managed resources

GitRepository Source

Defines where Flux pulls manifests from and how often it polls.

yaml

apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1kind: GitRepositorymetadata:  name: webapp  namespace: flux-systemspec:  interval: 1m  url: https://github.com/org/webapp-config  ref:    branch: main

Kustomization Reconciler

Applies a directory's manifests to the cluster, with pruning and health checks.

yaml

apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1kind: Kustomizationmetadata:  name: webapp  namespace: flux-systemspec:  interval: 5m  path: ./deploy/production  prune: true  sourceRef:    kind: GitRepository    name: webapp  healthChecks:    - apiVersion: apps/v1      kind: Deployment      name: webapp      namespace: default

HelmRelease from a HelmRepository

Manage a Helm chart deployment declaratively through Flux.

yaml

apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1kind: HelmRepositorymetadata:  name: bitnami  namespace: flux-systemspec:  interval: 30m  url: https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami---apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2kind: HelmReleasemetadata:  name: redis  namespace: flux-systemspec:  interval: 10m  chart:    spec:      chart: redis      version: '18.x'      sourceRef:        kind: HelmRepository        name: bitnami  values:    architecture: standalone

flux CLI & CRD Reference

Commands and CRDs you'll use daily.

flux get kustomizations / helmreleases / sources git- list reconciliation status of each resource type
flux reconcile kustomization webapp --with-source- force an immediate re-sync instead of waiting for the interval
flux suspend / resume kustomization webapp- pause reconciliation, e.g. during an incident
flux logs --follow- tail controller logs across the flux-system namespace
ImageUpdateAutomation- CRD that auto-commits new image tags back to Git when a new image is detected
Notification/Alert/Provider- CRDs to send reconciliation events to Slack, Teams, webhooks, etc.

Pro Tip

Split GitRepository/Kustomization definitions by environment directory (clusters/staging, clusters/production) rather than by branch — branch-per-environment fights Flux's continuous-reconciliation model and makes promoting a change require error-prone merges instead of a simple path bump.

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