Comparison
Config repositoryvsGitOps
Config repository
what is deployed lives in a separate repository from the code, and the commit history there is the deployment history.
The versioned repository holding the desired state of environments, separate from application source. Separating it means a deploy is a commit — reviewable, revertable, auditable — and that the deployment history is a git log rather than a build server's database. The cost is a second repository and the two-commit dance every change requires, which is the standard complaint about GitOps and the standard price of the audit trail.
Full entry →GitOps
nobody has credentials to deploy; an agent in the cluster watches a repository and makes reality match it.
Operating a system by keeping its desired state in version control and having an in-cluster agent continuously reconcile the running system to it. It gives you review, history, rollback by revert and drift correction for free, because they are properties of git and of reconciliation rather than features anyone built. It also relocates the hard problems: secrets cannot go in the repository, and a broken commit is now deployed continuously rather than once.
Full entry →