Work in Branches and Forks

ArgoCD tracks a specific Git branch for all cluster services. When developing in a feature branch or a fork, you can switch the cluster to track any branch without pushing changes to that branch first.

How branch propagation works

The root all-cluster-services ArgoCD Application is created by Ansible from argo-cd/argo-git-repository.yaml. It sets targetRevision to the value of repo_branch in group_vars/all.yml and passes it down to all child apps via valuesObject. Child app templates use {{ .Values.repo_branch }} for their own targetRevision.

This means group_vars/all.yml is the single source of truth for which branch the entire cluster tracks.

Working in a feature branch

Step 1: Update group_vars/all.yml

repo_branch: my-feature-branch

Step 2: Apply with the cluster tag

ansible-playbook pb_all.yml --tags cluster

This updates the root ArgoCD Application’s targetRevision and passes the new branch to all child apps. No commit or push is needed — the playbook applies directly to the cluster.

For a one-off switch without editing the file:

ansible-playbook pb_all.yml --tags cluster -e repo_branch=my-feature-branch

Step 3: Return to main

ansible-playbook pb_all.yml --tags cluster -e repo_branch=main

(Or edit group_vars/all.yml back to main and re-run.)

Working in a fork

If you forked the repository, update the remote URL in group_vars/all.yml:

repo_remote: https://github.com/your-user/tpi-k3s-ansible.git

Then deploy:

ansible-playbook pb_all.yml --tags cluster

For a one-off deployment from a fork without changing the config file:

ansible-playbook pb_all.yml --tags cluster \
  -e repo_branch=your_branch \
  -e repo_remote=https://github.com/your-user/tpi-k3s-ansible.git