helm show: Usage, Options & Common CI Errors

Read a chart's values, metadata, and docs before installing.

helm show (formerly helm inspect) prints information about a chart - its Chart.yaml, default values.yaml, README, or CRDs - straight from a repo or local path, no install required. It is how you learn what a third-party chart exposes.

What it does

helm show values CHART prints the chart's default values (the keys you can override); show chart prints Chart.yaml metadata; show readme prints the docs; show crds prints CRDs; show all combines them. With a repo chart you can add --version to inspect a specific version. It is read-only and cluster-independent.

Common usage

Terminal

helm show values bitnami/nginx > values.default.yaml
helm show chart bitnami/nginx
helm show values bitnami/nginx --version 15.0.0
helm show readme ./charts/web

Common errors in CI

A common CI use is helm show values CHART > base.yaml to diff a chart's defaults across versions and catch breaking value renames before an upgrade. "Error: failed to download \"repo/chart\"" means the chart or version is not in your cached index. Run helm repo update, and check the --version exists. For OCI charts, use the oci:// reference (helm show values oci://registry/chart --version X), since a bare name resolves only against helm-repo-add repositories, not registries.

Related guides

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