Skip to main content
Kustomize does not render Helm charts natively. The standard pattern is to use helm template to produce raw manifests, commit them as a base, and apply per-environment overlays.
Use this approach when your organization standardizes on Kustomize as the final renderer (for example, as the input to Argo CD or your CD pipeline). If you don’t have that constraint, Install with Helm is simpler.
The chart is distributed through a private registry. helm template against the OCI URL requires you to helm registry login ghcr.io first, using a token from the Tensormesh team — see Install with Helm → Install.

​
Render the chart

helm template tensormesh-operator \
  oci://ghcr.io/tensormesh-production/charts/tensormesh-operator \
  --namespace tensormesh-operator \
  --include-crds \
  > base/manifests.yaml
--include-crds is required — Helm omits CRDs from template output by default.

​
Wire up the base

base/kustomization.yaml
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization

namespace: tensormesh-operator

resources:
  - namespace.yaml
  - manifests.yaml
base/namespace.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: tensormesh-operator

​
Add an overlay

overlays/prod/kustomization.yaml
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization

resources:
  - ../../base

patches:
  - target:
      kind: Deployment
      name: tensormesh-operator
    patch: |-
      - op: replace
        path: /spec/replicas
        value: 2
  - target:
      kind: LMCacheEngine
      name: tensormesh-operator-default
    patch: |-
      - op: replace
        path: /spec/l1/sizeGB
        value: 120
Apply: 
kubectl apply -k overlays/prod

​
Re-rendering when the chart updates

The output of helm template is a snapshot. To pick up a new chart version, re-run the render command above and commit the diff. Kustomize overlays continue to apply on top. For teams that want this rendered automatically, both Argo CD and Flux can render Helm then layer Kustomize overlays inline — see Install with GitOps.

​
Trade-offs vs. Helm

HelmHelm-template + Kustomize
Upgrade UXhelm upgradeRe-render + diff + apply
Release trackingHelm stores history (rollback works)None; you rely on Git
Conditional logicChart’s templating + valuesPatches per overlay
Best forSingle-purpose installsPipelines that already use Kustomize end-to-end

​
Next steps

Helm install reference

Every value the rendered manifests are derived from.

GitOps

Argo CD and Flux can do the Helm-template + Kustomize-overlay pipeline for you.