Argo CD GitOps repo design options

• Argo CD is flexible about how you organize your Git repos
• Assume YAML is in a different repo from app code (a 12-Factor principle) and many other reasons
• Repo design often/should reflect org structure (Conway’s Law)

Minimal: Shared ownership

• 1 ring repo to rule them all: Kustomize + Helm + Argo CD App + Argo CD Config

Scalable: Split app configs from Argo CD configs 👈 my favorite

• 1 Kustomize/Helm repo per solution: (Dev and DevOps share ownership)
• 1 Argo CD repo: Argo CD App + Argo CD Config (DevOps or Ops team owns)
• Optional: involves DevOps/Ops PR approval when first adding an app to Argo CD (since they own repo)
• ApplicationSet now enables Ops cluster control while Devs add/remove apps at will
• Day to day, Devs can PR to their own Kustomize/Helm repos w/o Ops involvement

Dev self-service

• By default, all Argo CD apps are managed within the same argocd namespace
• This requires App YAML authors (Devs) to have Argo CD write perms, basically cluster admin
• You can mitigate this with branch protection PR reviews by DevOps/Ops of app YAML (which is what I do)
• That can slow down Devs, which now need a DevOps PR approval to add new Apps
• What if Dev teams could manage their own apps in their own namespaces?

Repo design needs to be split further

• Kustomize/Helm repo per "solution" or "area of responsibility" (Dev and DevOps share ownership)
• Argo CD App repo (Dev teams own)
• Argo CD Config repo (DevOps/Ops team owns)