Getting Started with GitOps and ArgoCD

GitOps has fundamentally changed how teams deploy applications to Kubernetes. Instead of running kubectl apply from your laptop or CI pipeline, you describe the desired state in Git — and a controller takes care of the rest.

What is GitOps?

At its core, GitOps is a set of practices:

Declarative configuration — your entire system is described as code
Git as the single source of truth — the desired state lives in a Git repository
Automated reconciliation — an agent continuously compares the actual state with the desired state and corrects any drift

This means that deploying is a git push, rollback is a git revert, and audit is git log.

Setting up ArgoCD

ArgoCD is one of the most popular GitOps controllers for Kubernetes. Here’s how to get started.

Installation

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

After a minute, check that everything is running:

kubectl get pods -n argocd

Creating your first Application

An ArgoCD Application tells the controller where to find your manifests and where to deploy them:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: my-app
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: default
  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/your-org/k8s-manifests.git
    targetRevision: main
    path: apps/my-app
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: my-app
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true

The syncPolicy.automated block is where the magic happens — ArgoCD will automatically apply changes from Git and fix any manual drift in the cluster.

Directory structure

A clean repository layout matters. I prefer keeping application manifests separate from infrastructure:

k8s-manifests/
├── apps/
│   ├── frontend/
│   │   ├── deployment.yaml
│   │   ├── service.yaml
│   │   └── ingress.yaml
│   └── backend/
│       ├── deployment.yaml
│       └── service.yaml
└── infra/
    ├── cert-manager/
    └── monitoring/

Why it works

The biggest advantage I’ve found with GitOps is not the automation — it’s the confidence. When every change goes through a pull request, you get code review for infrastructure changes for free. And if something breaks, you know exactly which commit caused it.

ArgoCD’s web UI also gives you a live view of your cluster state, making it easy to spot sync issues or unhealthy pods at a glance.

If you’re running Kubernetes and still deploying via CI pipelines with kubectl apply, give GitOps a try. The initial setup is worth the long-term payoff.