Create and package a chart

Create a chart and package it:

helm create my-chart
helm package ./my-chart

helm package writes my-chart-0.1.0.tgz to the current directory. The name and the version in my-chart/Chart.yaml identify the chart in Repsy: the name has to be lower case letters, digits and -, and the version has to be a semantic version without a v in front, see Managing Chart Versions.

Install the helm-push plugin

helm cm-push comes from the ChartMuseum helm-push plugin. Install it once:

helm plugin install https://github.com/chartmuseum/helm-push

Helm 4 refuses to install a plugin that has no signature, and this plugin publishes none. With Helm 4, add --verify=false to the command. Check the result with helm plugin list: it lists cm-push.

Add the repository

Register your repository under a name of your choice, here repsy-charts:

helm repo add repsy-charts https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name> \
  --username <username> \
  --password <password-or-token>

The name is only a local alias, it does not have to match the name of the repository. Helm stores the credentials in its repositories file, and helm cm-push and helm install use them later. To keep the secret out of your shell history, use --password-stdin instead of --password and pipe the secret in.

Helm reads the index of the repository while it adds it, so a failed helm repo add already tells you that the address or the credentials are wrong, see Troubleshooting.

Push the chart

helm cm-push my-chart-0.1.0.tgz repsy-charts

The command ends with Done. when Repsy has accepted the chart. You can also give the chart directory instead of the archive, and helm cm-push packages it for you. Note that helm cm-push builds a fresh package from the chart before it uploads it, so the stored archive can differ byte for byte from the file helm package wrote, although it has the same content.

Instead of the repository name you can pass the address and the credentials:

helm cm-push my-chart-0.1.0.tgz https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name> \
  --username <username> \
  --password <password-or-token>

With a deploy token you can also use --access-token <token>, which sends the token as a Bearer credential.

Or upload with curl

The upload is a multipart POST with the archive in a part named chart, so any HTTP client can do it:

curl -u <username>:<password-or-token> \
  -F "[email protected]" \
  https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name>/api/charts

Repsy answers 201 with an empty body when it has accepted the chart. helm cm-push posts to <repo-base-url>/api/<repo-name>/charts, and Repsy accepts both addresses.

Verify the result in the web UI

1. Sign in to the web UI and open the Repositories tab. Open your repository.
2. The list has one row per chart, with its latest version, its description and when it was updated. Open the chart to see its versions, and open a version to see its details.
3. The details show the digest and the size of the chart, the Chart.yaml metadata, and the ready-made helm install command for the classic protocol and helm pull command for OCI.

To check what Helm will see, request the index of the repository:

curl -u <username>:<password-or-token> https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name>/index.yaml

apiVersion: v1
entries:
  my-chart:
  - name: my-chart
    version: 0.1.0
    description: A Helm chart for Kubernetes
    appVersion: 1.16.0
    type: application
    digest: sha256:5b968fb6e03f6769561f6c1bf54762217443e3069756b77842b07eda7b77224e
    urls:
    - charts/my-chart-0.1.0.tgz
    created: '2026-09-25T12:18:56.328987Z'
generated: '2026-09-25T12:18:56.375253852Z'

Every version of every chart of the repository is one entry, and the chart is downloaded from the relative URL in urls, here https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name>/charts/my-chart-0.1.0.tgz. This is the same for a chart that was published over OCI, see Publishing and Pulling Charts over OCI.

Search, pull and install

Update your local copy of the index, then look for the chart:

helm repo update
helm search repo repsy-charts

helm search repo lists the newest version of each chart. Add --versions to list every version. Helm searches its local copy of the index, so run helm repo update again after somebody has published a new version, otherwise it is not found yet.

Download the chart, or install it into your cluster:

helm pull repsy-charts/my-chart --version 0.1.0
helm install my-release repsy-charts/my-chart --version 0.1.0

Without --version, Helm picks the newest version. helm pull writes my-chart-0.1.0.tgz to the current directory, and --destination <directory> puts it into a directory that already exists.

If you do not want to add the repository, pass its address and the credentials to the command instead:

helm pull my-chart --repo https://<your-repsy-host>/<repo-name> \
  --version 0.1.0 \
  --username <username> \
  --password <password-or-token>

A public repository needs no credentials to add, search, pull or install. A Read Only deploy token is enough for a private repository.