{"id":2829,"date":"2023-01-16T19:44:22","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T14:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trifinix.com\/?p=2829"},"modified":"2023-02-06T10:59:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T05:29:27","slug":"what-is-argo-cd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trifinix.com\/?p=2829","title":{"rendered":"What is Argo CD?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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At its very simplest, Argo CD is an open-source GitOps continuous delivery tool. It monitors your cluster and your declaratively-defined infrastructure stored in a Git repository and resolves differences between the two \u2014 effectively automating an application deployment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

You may have also heard of it as a Kubernetes controller. Kubernetes helped change how infrastructure is managed, but it also added complexity for developers and system administrators by introducing new concepts like kubernetes manifests, kubernetes resources, and other various Kuberentes specific concepts. As the GitOps movement starts to walk back some of that complexity and abstract it under a layer of automation, Argo CD (\u201cCD\u201d of course being shorthand for \u201ccontinuous delivery\u201d) is one of the primary tools that makes this automation possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Without Argo CD, GitOps remains \u201cClickOps.\u201d Your CI\/CD tool may be able to roll out infrastructure changes, but it can\u2019t monitor diffs, and thus infrastructure remains mostly manual.<\/p>\n\n

In this article, we explain what Argo CD does, how it works, and an example of how to get started with it.<\/p>\n\n

What Does Argo CD Do?<\/h2>\n\n

Argo CD<\/a> is a declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool built by the team at the financial software giant Intuit. After moving to the public cloud, having to manage containerization tools and infrastructure interfered with Intuit\u2019s goal to realize the maximum benefits of the cloud. The Intuit team developed Argo CD to achieve maximum release speed and velocity gains. They wanted to apply a pane of automation that would eliminate some of that manual work, so they created the controller \u2014 Argo CD \u2014 and they open-sourced it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Argo CD is now maintained by the community<\/a> as a part of the Argo Project, and embedded in lots of GitOps tools that you\u2019re probably familiar with as a delivery tool for Kubernetes native continuous deployment. (Harness\u2019 own GitOps solution<\/a> is built on top of it.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Why Argo CD?<\/h2>\n\n

As a GitOps continuous delivery tool, Argo CD continuously monitors your running infrastructure (the actual state) to compare it to declaratively-defined code (the desired state or target state) to determine whether they are out of sync, which helps to remediate configuration drift.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Argo CD automatically deploys new configurations and new version code to the target environment. Depending on how you\u2019ve configured Argo CD to work, it\u2019ll either notify you that things are out of sync after a new git commit, or take action. If you\u2019ve set it up to automatically enforce changes, it\u2019ll overwrite the production configuration with what\u2019s stored in your immutable, versioned Git repository. The tool is great for complex application rollouts.<\/p>\n\n

Furthermore, Argo CD is essential when your developer team is working in version-controlled environments. By automating lifecycle management and application deployment, Argo CD proactively monitors your application configuration for any potential syncing issues before it reaches your production environment.<\/p>\n\n

Argo CD Core Concepts<\/h2>\n\n

To set up and begin using Argo CD and Kubernetes<\/a>, you\u2019ll need a working familiarity with:<\/p>\n\n