#7702·skaffold

skaffold cannot deploy local packaged helm chart

Author: ondrej-ivankoCreated Jul 29, 2022Updated Jul 7, 2026

Labelskind/bugarea/deploydeploy/helmpriority/p2

Expected behavior

should deploy without accident with helm and local packaged chart according the documentation

Actual behavior

returns Error: only unpacked charts can be updated

Information

Skaffold version: 1.37.1
Operating system: Artix Linux 5.18.14-artix1-1
Installed via: skaffold run -p <profile>
Contents of skaffold.yaml:

yaml

apiVersion: skaffold/v2beta15
kind: Config

profiles:
  - name: deploy
    deploy:
      helm:
        releases:
          - name: "{{.SITE}}"
            chartPath: starship-block.tgz
            namespace: "{{.SITE}}"
            createNamespace: true
            valuesFiles:
              - "siteconfig/{{.SITE}}.yaml"
            upgradeOnChange: true

Steps to reproduce the behavior

get a packaged helm chart and try to deploy it with this skaffold.yaml profile

Last few lines of skaffold ... -vdebug:

time="2022-07-29T13:01:18Z" level=debug msg="Running command: [helm --kube-context uhurablock-office-test get all --namespace uhurablock-office-test uhurablock-office-test]" subtask=0 task=Deploy
time="2022-07-29T13:01:18Z" level=info msg="Building helm dependencies..." subtask=0 task=Deploy
time="2022-07-29T13:01:18Z" level=debug msg="Running command: [helm --kube-context uhurablock-office-test dep build starship-block.tgz]" subtask=0 task=Deploy
Error: only unpacked charts can be updated
time="2022-07-29T13:01:18Z" level=debug msg="Running command: [tput colors]" subtask=-1 task=DevLoop
time="2022-07-29T13:01:18Z" level=debug msg="error checking for color support: checking terminal colors: running [tput colors]\n - stdout: \"\"\n - stderr: \"tput: No value for $TERM and no -T specified\\n\"\n - cause: exit status 2" subtask=-1 task=DevLoop

Source: GoogleContainerTools/skaffold

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