The .helmignore file

The .helmignore file is used to specify files you don't want to include in your helm chart.

The .helmignore file must be placed in the chart's root directory, alongside the Chart.yaml file. It is not read from the current working directory or any other location.

If this file exists, Helm ignores every path that matches a pattern when it loads the chart. That applies to helm package, and also to commands that render or install the chart directly from a directory, such as helm install, helm upgrade, and helm template.

Use .helmignore to keep unnecessary or sensitive files out of the packaged chart (and out of local install/upgrade runs from the chart directory).

The .helmignore file supports Unix shell glob matching, relative path matching, and negation (prefixed with !). Only one pattern per line is considered.

Here is an example .helmignore file:

# comment

# Match any file or path named .helmignore
.helmignore

# Match any file or path named .git
.git

# Match any text file
*.txt

# Match only directories named mydir
mydir/

# Match only text files in the top-level directory
/*.txt

# Match only the file foo.txt in the top-level directory
/foo.txt

# Match any file named ab.txt, ac.txt, or ad.txt
a[b-d].txt

# Match any file under subdir matching draft*
*/draft*

# Match draft files two levels deep (e.g., foo/bar/draft123)
*/*/draft*
draft?

Some notable differences from .gitignore:

• The '**' syntax is not supported.
• The globbing library is Go's 'filepath.Match', not fnmatch(3)
• Trailing spaces are always ignored (there is no supported escape sequence)
• There is no support for '!' as a special leading sequence.
• It does not exclude itself by default, you have to add an explicit entry for .helmignore

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