GitOps

Cloud GitOps: Declarative, Git-Driven Delivery for Cloud Infrastructure and Applications

Cloud GitOps applies Git as the single source of truth for both application and infrastructure desired state. Changes are made via pull requests, automatically reconciled by controllers, and deployed to cloud environments—bringing repeatability, auditability, and developer-friendly workflows to infrastructure and app delivery.

What Is GitOps?

GitOps uses Git repositories to store declarative configurations (Kubernetes manifests, Helm charts, Terraform, YAML). An automated agent (Argo CD, Flux) continuously compares the live state with the Git-stored desired state and applies changes to converge the environment. CI handles build and artifact creation; Git + CD handles deployment and drift correction.

Key Benefits

• Auditability: Every change is a Git commit/PR with history, approvals, and traceability.
• Consistency & Repeatability: Declarative configs ensure identical environments across clusters and regions.
• Faster, safer delivery: PR-based workflows, automated validation, and automated rollbacks reduce risk.
• Self-service for teams: Reusable manifests and templates enable service teams to manage deployments without cluster admin access.
• Drift detection & recovery: Controllers detect divergence and reconcile to the declared state automatically.

Core Components and Tools

• Git repositories: Store manifests, Helm charts, Kustomize overlays, or Terraform state references.
• Continuous Delivery controllers: Argo CD, Flux—reconcile Git state to cluster state and support sync policies.
• CI systems: Build container images and publish artifacts (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Cloud Build).
• Package managers & templating: Helm, Kustomize, Jsonnet for reusable, parameterized configs.
• Secrets management: Sealed Secrets, SOPS, HashiCorp Vault, or cloud-native secret stores for encrypted, Git-safe secrets.
• Policy & security: Open Policy Agent (OPA) / Gatekeeper for admission policies and policy-as-code enforcement.

GitOps on AWS, Azure, and GCP

• AWS: Use EKS with Argo CD or Flux; integrate with ECR for images, IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA), and tools like Crossplane for cloud resource provisioning via Kubernetes. CI/CD via CodePipeline or GitHub Actions; secrets in AWS Secrets Manager or SOPS with KMS.
• Azure: AKS + Flux/Argo CD; integrate with ACR, Azure AD for GitOps authentication, and Azure Key Vault for secrets. Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions for CI, and Azure Managed Identities for secure access.
• GCP: GKE + Argo CD/Flux or Google’s Config Sync; integrate with Artifact Registry, Workload Identity for secure credentials, Secret Manager or SOPS with KMS for secrets. Cloud Build or GitHub Actions for CI pipelines.

Best Practices

1. Declare everything: Store app, infra, and platform config in Git—use templating for environment overlays.
2. Use pull request workflows: Require code review, automated tests, and policy checks before merging.
3. Encrypt secrets: Never commit plain secrets—use SOPS, Sealed Secrets, or cloud secret managers with Git-friendly workflows.
4. Adopt progressive delivery: Combine GitOps with canary, blue/green, or traffic-splitting via service mesh or ingress controllers.
5. Implement policy-as-code: Enforce security and compliance checks at merge-time and admission-time.
6. Automate drift handling carefully: Prefer alerting on drift for critical resources; allow auto-sync for stateless apps.
7. Scale with multi-repo strategies: Use mono-repo for small orgs and componentized repos or app-of-apps patterns for large fleets.

Typical GitOps Workflow

1. Developer updates declarative config or Helm values in a feature branch.
2. CI builds container images and pushes to registry, updating manifest image tags (automated or via image automation).
3. PR triggers tests and policy checks; reviewers approve.
4. Merge to main triggers CD controller to reconcile and apply changes to the target cluster.
5. Controller reports sync status; observability alerts on failures and metrics.

Measurable Outcomes

• Reduced mean time to deploy and recover
• Improved compliance and traceability via Git history and PR audits
• Fewer configuration drifts and environment inconsistencies
• Faster onboarding and self-service for platform consumers

Adopt Cloud GitOps to unify delivery workflows, increase deployment safety, and scale platform operations. For a tailored GitOps adoption plan across AWS, Azure, or GCP, request a GitOps assessment and implementation roadmap.