ArgoCD redeploying all applications after I pushed one specific application value.

[yondkoo]

Hi, I'm one day old in the ArgoCD (even in GitOps or CI/CD world). So, it might be a defacto that ArgoCD redeploys applications whether it has changed. I've used multiple sources for an application with Helm value files from an external Git repository.

For example, If I change a value in services/auth-service/apollo-environment/values.yaml and push it to the main branch argocd syncs it and redeploys all applications.

ArgoCD Application:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: auth-service
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  destination:
    namespace: apollo
    name: in-cluster
    server: ''
  project: apollo-stage
  sources:
    - chart: base-deployment
      repoURL: https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/project-id/packages/helm/stable
      targetRevision: 0.0.2
      helm:
        valueFiles:
          - $values/services/auth-service/apollo-environment/values.yml
    - repoURL: 'https://gitlab.com/devops/staging-pocket-deployments.git'
      ref: values
      targetRevision: main
      path: services/auth-service/apollo-environment
      directory:
        recurse: true
        include: values.yml
  syncPolicy:
    syncOptions:
    - ApplyOutOfSyncOnly=true
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true

Git Repository Directory pattern:

├── README.md
├── services
│   ├── auth-service
│   │   ├── apollo-environment
│   │   │   ├── apollo-auth-service-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   │   ├── nebula-environment
│   │   │   ├── nebula-auth-service-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   │   ├── tesla-environment
│   │   │   ├── tesla-auth-service-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   ├── customer-service
│   │   ├── apollo-environment
│   │   │   ├── apollo-customer-service-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   │   ├── nebula-environment
│   │   │   ├── nebula-customer-service-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   │   ├── tesla-environment
│   │   │   ├── tesla-customer-service-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   ├── service-n
│   │   ├── apollo-environment
│   │   │   ├── apollo-service-n-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   │   ├── nebula-environment
│   │   │   ├── neubla-service-n-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml
│   │   ├─── tesla-environment
│   │   │   ├── tesla-service-n-argocd.yml
│   │   │   ├── config-dir
│   │   │   └── values.yml

[hjsauce]

@yondkoo https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/operator-manual/high_availability/#monorepo-scaling-considerations and https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/operator-manual/high_availability/#manifest-paths-annotation . Understand these both as they are really important when working with monorepos and app of apps which I assume is your pattern of deployment.

[yondkoo]

Thanks for replying, but you have sent two of the same links.

[hjsauce]

Updated my original comment.

[yondkoo]

Thanks, the issue remains.

Updated config file:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: auth
  namespace: argocd
  annotations:
    argocd.argoproj.io/manifest-generate-paths: '/services/auth/apollo-environment'
spec:
  destination:
    namespace: apollo
    name: in-cluster
    server: ''
  project: apollo-stage
  sources:
    - chart: base-deployment
      repoURL: https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/PROJECT_ID/packages/helm/stable
      targetRevision: 0.0.2
      helm:
        valueFiles:
          - $service-auth-values/services/auth/apollo-environment/values.yml
    - repoURL: 'https://gitlab.com/devops/staging-pocket-deployments.git'
      ref: service-auth-values
      targetRevision: main
      path: services/auth/apollo-environment
      directory:
        recurse: true
        include: values.yml

And later on, checked the diff between the previous commit and the latest commit. There are no changes on the following files (values.yml, this application file). But there is a timestamp diff with a timestamp, and it needs to sync again which I could not figure out.. almost giving up haha.

[hjsauce]

That is an interesting annotation. Where does it get added from? AFAIK it is not standard for Kubernetes or Argo.

[ChristianCiach]

@yondkoo Whatever is generating your YAML documents adds a timestamp annotation to your pod-spec. This is fundamentally incompatible with Gitops, so you should try to avoid that.

If you cannot avoid this annotation, you may configure Argo-CD to ignore it: https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user-guide/diffing/

Try adding this to your argocd-cm ConfigMap:

  resource.customizations.ignoreDifferences.apps_Deployment: |
    jsonPointers:
    - /spec/template/metadata/annotations/timestamp