Production-oriented Helm charts and Kubernetes packaging workflows built around official upstream images, explicit values contracts, and verifiable releases.
Website · Documentation · Helm Repository · Artifact Hub · Charts
HelmForge is an open-source Helm chart ecosystem for teams that want standard Kubernetes, standard Helm, official upstream images, and practical day-2 operations without a proprietary chart or image layer.
The project currently maintains 83 Helm charts across databases, messaging, identity, automation, CMS, analytics, AI tooling, networking, observability, and self-hosted applications. Charts are published through both a classic HTTPS Helm repository and OCI artifacts on GHCR.
Our design principle is simple:
Use what upstream ships, make the Kubernetes contract explicit, and keep releases verifiable.
- Official upstream images - charts prefer images published by the application maintainers, avoiding unnecessary rebuild layers and vendor-specific runtime wrappers.
- Pinned image versions - defaults use explicit tags instead of floating
latesttags. - Apache-2.0 licensed - project code, charts, documentation, and supporting tooling use a CNCF-aligned permissive license.
- Signed releases - packaged charts include GPG provenance and OCI artifacts are signed with Sigstore Cosign through GitHub Actions OIDC.
- Values contracts - every chart includes
values.yaml,values.schema.json, examples, and CI scenarios. - Built-in backup patterns - 39 charts include optional S3-compatible backup workflows.
- Operator-aware boundaries - documentation is explicit about what a chart manages and when a domain-specific operator is the better fit.
- No open-core split - charts, tests, docs, release automation, and examples are public.
Use the HTTPS Helm repository:
helm repo add helmforge https://repo.helmforge.dev
helm repo update
helm search repo helmforge/
helm install my-release helmforge/<chart-name> --version <version> -f values.yamlOr pull directly from OCI:
helm install my-release oci://ghcr.io/helmforgedev/helm/<chart-name> --version <version> -f values.yamlBrowse the full catalog at helmforge.dev/charts or Artifact Hub.
| Repository | Purpose |
|---|---|
| charts | Primary Helm chart repository, release automation, chart tests, schemas, and package metadata |
| site | Documentation website at helmforge.dev, chart catalog, roadmap, playground, and stack builder |
| .github | Organization profile and shared community health files |
| fastmcp-server | Production-ready FastMCP server image with dynamic tool/resource/prompt loading |
| fastmcp-tools | Reusable MCP tool packages for GitHub, Kubernetes, HTTP, databases, and notifications |
| kubectl | Minimal multi-architecture kubectl image for Kubernetes operations |
| strapi-base | Base Strapi image used by HelmForge Strapi deployments |
| Area | Current state |
|---|---|
| Charts | 83 chart packages |
| Stable charts | 83 stable charts |
| Backups | 39 charts with optional S3-compatible backup support |
| Distribution | HTTPS Helm repository and GHCR OCI registry |
| Release integrity | GPG provenance plus Sigstore Cosign signatures |
| Validation | Helm lint, strict lint, template rendering, helm-unittest, kubeconform, and Artifact Hub lint |
| Configuration | JSON Schema for every chart |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| CNCF | Sandbox application preparation in progress |
HelmForge is preparing for CNCF Sandbox submission and is strengthening governance, maintainership, adoption tracking, and community health files as part of that process.
Public adopters currently include organizations using HelmForge charts in production for databases, application workloads, backups, identity, and platform services.
- Documentation: https://helmforge.dev/docs
- Chart catalog: https://helmforge.dev/charts
- Comparison with Bitnami and community charts: https://helmforge.dev/docs/comparison
- Roadmap: https://helmforge.dev/roadmap
- Artifact Hub: https://artifacthub.io/packages/search?repo=helmforge
- Public Helm repository: https://repo.helmforge.dev