Quickstart: Helm Chart Documentation Generator

Prerequisites

Install the required CLI tools:

brew install helm-docs yq helm

Or via Go:

go install github.com/norwoodj/helm-docs/cmd/helm-docs@latest
go install github.com/mikefarah/yq/v4@latest

Verify:

helm-docs --version   # v1.14+
yq --version          # v4+
helm version           # v3+

Generate all chart docs

make docs-helm-charts

This single command:

1. Fetches the latest published version from the OCI registry
2. Runs helm-docs to regenerate values tables from values.yaml
3. Enriches each chart's source README.md with usage examples
4. Generates Docusaurus pages in docs/docs/installation/helm-charts/

Override the chart version

If you're offline or want to pin a specific version:

make docs-helm-charts CHART_VERSION=0.2.37

Validate the output

Run the full end-to-end validation (generates docs, builds Docusaurus, checks for RC patterns):

make docs-helm-validate

Or run the steps individually:

# Generate docs
make docs-helm-charts

# Build Docusaurus (verifies MDX compilation, broken links, sidebar)
make docs-build

# Check for RC version leakage
grep -rE '-(rc|alpha|beta|pre)\.' docs/docs/installation/helm-charts/ && echo "FAIL" || echo "PASS"

What gets generated

For each chart under charts/, two files are produced:

Output	Location	Purpose
Source README	charts/<parent>/charts/<chart>/README.md	GitHub-browsable reference with usage examples
Docusaurus page	docs/docs/installation/helm-charts/<parent>/<chart>.md	Documentation site page with frontmatter

Generated doc sections

Each generated chart doc includes:

1. Auto-generated marker — warning not to edit manually
2. Chart metadata — name, description, published version
3. Quick Start — helm install and helm upgrade commands
4. Customizing Values — --set and -f values.yaml examples
5. Reading the Values Table — explains Key, Type, Default, Description columns
6. Values — full parameter table (from helm-docs)
7. Dependencies — subchart table with versions and conditions (parent charts only)