Clarify release_values and how it differs from set_values

[ketozhang]

SUMMARY

There's very minimal documentation on release_values...

...from experience, this looks like it overlaps with set_values, but it just takes different data types: former uses dict and latter uses list[dict]. Did I understand this correctly? Either way, further clarification in the docs would be helpful and I can contribute.

ISSUE TYPE

• Documentation Report

COMPONENT NAME

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible [core 2.17.1]

[ketozhang]

Another thing to clarify is order of precedence. In Helm there isn't an equivalent feature of this release_values, but there is of set_values (--set) and values_files (--files). The order of precedence goes default chart value, values files, then set.

Where does release_values go? Is it just another value file but embedded into the playbook?

[gravesm]

Thanks for filing an issue @ketozhang. The release_values options corresponds to the -f/--values option in helm. The passed in dictionary gets written to a temp file and added to the resulting helm command. If you would like to add clarification to the documentation, that would be great.

[ketozhang]

@gravesm Thanks for the clarification. I also made the mistake, the flag for values_files is also -f/--values. That doesn't clarify what the order of precedence is and according to Helm help pages:

You can specify the '--values'/'-f' flag multiple times. The priority will be given to the
last (right-most) file specified. For example, if both myvalues.yaml and override.yaml
contained a key called 'Test', the value set in override.yaml would take precedence:

    $ helm install -f myvalues.yaml -f override.yaml  myredis ./redis

do you know which one comes first in this Ansible module?

[gravesm]

values_files comes before release_values. This part, at least, does show up in the docs: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/kubernetes/core/helm_module.html#parameter-values_files. I think adding a similar statement to the release_values parameter would help clarify how these two work when used together.

[ketozhang]

Thanks, let me update the docs and get back with a PR