skaffold render passes incorrect global helm flags to helm dep build

[sumeshpremraj]

Expected behavior

Helm dependency build worked as expected on skaffold 2.2.0 with the workaround mentioned in https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/issues/5445#issuecomment-1284482680

The fix for that issue was merged and available since skaffold 2.4.0, so I tried to upgrade to the latest version and remove the workaround.

Actual behavior

Skaffold/helm breaks becasue of an error caused by global flags being passed to helm dep build. These flags are valid for helm template, but not helm dep.

I should note here that I am specifying helm global flags as a helm anchor.

Information

• Skaffold version: 2.9.0
• Operating system: macOS 13.5.2
• Installed via: Homebrew
• Contents of skaffold.yaml:

apiVersion: skaffold/v4beta3
kind: Config
metadata:
  name: cluster
build:
  local:
    push: false

.helm_flags: &helm_flags
  global:
    - "--include-crds"
    - "--api-versions"
    - "apiregistration.k8s.io/v1"

.helm_release: &helm_release
  namespace: default
  chartPath: charts/k8s-infra
  skipBuildDependencies: false
  version: 1.0.0

profiles:
  - name: apps
    manifests:
      helm:
        flags: *helm_flags
        releases:
          - <<: *helm_release
            name: trv-data-apps-cluster
            valuesFiles:
              - charts/k8s-infra/values.yaml
              - charts/k8s-infra/values/apps.yaml

Steps to reproduce the behavior

$ skaffold -v debug render --filename ./skaffold.yaml  --profile apps --output ./output.yaml --offline=true
...
INFO[0000] Skaffold &{Version:v2.9.0 ConfigVersion:skaffold/v4beta8 GitVersion: GitCommit:6071a3f7574702c8666a243d89254e9b0d8ff4d7 BuildDate:2023-11-07T13:20:11Z GoVersion:go1.21.0 Compiler:gc Platform:darwin/arm64 User:}  subtask=-1 task=DevLoop
...
INFO[0000] Building helm dependencies...                 subtask=0 task=Render
DEBU[0000] Running command: [helm --kube-context CONTEXT dep build charts/k8s-infra --include-crds --api-versions apiregistration.k8s.io/v1]  subtask=0 task=Render
INFO[0000] Error: unknown flag: --include-crds           subtask=0 task=Render
DEBU[0000] Running command: [tput colors]                subtask=-1 task=DevLoop
DEBU[0000] Command output: [256]                        subtask=-1 task=DevLoop
building helm dependencies: exit status 1

[renzodavid9]

Hey @sumeshpremraj, thanks for opening this issue. I was able to reproduce this. As you mention, the global flags are used in all the Helm commands that Skaffold invoques behind the scene.

I would say then the best option here is to extend the helm.flags property to include something like helm.flags.dep and helm.flags.template to be more granular.

[renzodavid9]

Looks related with https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/issues/8227, something like manifests.helm.flags.template will help for that case