Genifest¶

Genifest is a Kubernetes manifest generation tool that creates deployment manifests from templates for GitOps workflows. It processes configuration files to generate Kubernetes resources with dynamic value substitution, designed for use with GitOps continuous deployment processes like ArgoCD.

Key Features¶

• 🔄 Metadata-Driven Discovery: Automatically discovers configurations through directory structures
• 🎯 Dynamic Value Generation: Multiple ways to generate values (functions, templates, scripts, files)
• 🏷️ Tag-Based Filtering: Apply different sets of changes based on environment or type tags
• 📁 Hierarchical Configuration: Distributed configs that keep changes close to files
• 🎛️ Advanced Path Expressions: yq-style keySelectors with grammar-based parsing
• 🔒 Security & Safety: Path validation, isolated execution, scoped changes, GitOps-ready
• 🚀 CLI-First Design: Subcommand-based architecture with enhanced progress reporting

How It Works¶

Genifest uses a metadata-driven approach to discover and process YAML configuration files. It applies dynamic changes to Kubernetes manifests and related configuration files based on configurable rules, allowing you to maintain a single set of manifests that evolve over time.

graph TD
    A[genifest.yaml] --> B[Metadata Discovery]
    B --> C[Load Configurations]
    C --> D[Apply Changes]
    D --> E[Generate Manifests]
    E --> F[GitOps Deployment]

    G[Functions] --> D
    H[Templates] --> D
    I[Scripts] --> D
    J[Files] --> D

Use Cases¶

• Environment-Specific Deployments: Generate different configurations for dev, staging, production
• Secret Management: Embed secrets and sensitive data dynamically
• Image Tag Management: Update container image tags based on business rules
• Configuration Variations: Manage variations in configuration files across environments
• GitOps Workflows: Single source of truth that works seamlessly with ArgoCD, Flux, etc.

Quick Start¶

# Install from GitHub releases
curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zostay/genifest/master/tools/install.sh | sh

# Or install from source
go install github.com/zostay/genifest/cmd/genifest@latest

# Apply all changes
genifest run

# Apply only production changes  
genifest run --include-tags production

# Show available tags
genifest tags

# Validate configuration
genifest validate

metadata:
  cloudHome: "."
  paths:
    - path: "k8s"
      files: true
      depth: 0
    - path: "scripts"
      scripts: true
      depth: 0

functions:
  - name: "get-replicas"
    params:
      - name: "environment"
        required: true
    valueFrom:
      script:
        exec: "get-replicas.sh"
        args:
          - name: "environment"
            valueFrom:
              argRef:
                name: environment

changes:
  - tag: "production"
    fileSelector: "*-deployment.yaml"
    keySelector: ".spec.replicas"
    valueFrom:
      call:
        function: "get-replicas"
        args:
          - name: "environment"
            valueFrom:
              default:
                value: "production"

Architecture Overview¶

Configuration Structure¶

Genifest uses a hierarchical configuration approach:

1. Root Configuration: A genifest.yaml file in your project root defines metadata paths and global settings
2. Distributed Configurations: Additional genifest.yaml files in subdirectories provide scoped configurations
3. Automatic Discovery: Directories without explicit configurations get synthetic configs containing all YAML files

Value Generation System¶

Multiple ways to generate dynamic values:

• DefaultValue: Literal string values
• ArgumentRef: References to variables from evaluation context
• BasicTemplate: Template strings with ${variable} substitution
• FunctionCall: Calls to named functions with arguments
• ScriptExec: Executes scripts from scripts directory
• FileInclusion: Includes content from files directory
• CallPipeline: Chains multiple operations together

Next Steps¶

Community¶

• GitHub: zostay/genifest
• Issues: Bug Reports & Feature Requests
• Discussions: Community Forum

License¶

Genifest is open source software licensed under the MIT License.

Copyright © 2025 Qubling LLC