GitOps Explained in 5 Minutes

You've probably heard "GitOps" thrown around in DevOps conversations. Let's cut through the jargon and explain what it actually means.

The One-Sentence Definition

GitOps means Git is the single source of truth for your infrastructure and deployments.

That's it. Everything else is implementation details.

How It Works

Traditional deployment:

1. Engineer merges code
2. CI builds and tests
3. Someone (or something) runs a deploy command
4. Hope it works

GitOps deployment:

1. Engineer merges code (including infrastructure changes)
2. CI builds and tests
3. A GitOps operator notices Git changed
4. Operator automatically syncs cluster to match Git
5. If something's wrong, Git has the history to rollback

The key difference: pull vs push. Instead of pushing changes to your cluster, your cluster pulls the desired state from Git.

Why This Matters

1. Audit Trail for Free

Every change is a Git commit. Who changed what, when, and why? git log tells you.

2. Rollbacks Are Trivial

Production broken? git revert and the operator syncs. No hunting for the right deploy command.

3. Disaster Recovery

Your entire infrastructure is in Git. Cluster dies? Spin up a new one, point it at Git, wait for sync.

4. Developer Experience

Developers already know Git. They don't need to learn kubectl or Terraform CLI. They just commit.

The Tools

The most popular GitOps operators:

• ArgoCD - Kubernetes-native, great UI, widely adopted
• Flux - Lightweight, CNCF graduated project
• Rancher Fleet - Multi-cluster focused

We use ArgoCD because of its excellent visibility and rollback capabilities.

Getting Started

1. Put your Kubernetes manifests (or Helm charts) in a Git repo
2. Install ArgoCD in your cluster
3. Point ArgoCD at your Git repo
4. Watch magic happen

From then on, every merge to main automatically deploys. Every branch can have preview environments. Every change is tracked.

Common Concerns

"What about secrets?" Use sealed secrets, external secrets operator, or a secrets manager like Vault. Never commit plaintext secrets.

"What if someone pushes bad config?" Same as bad code—CI catches it, or you rollback. The difference is rollback is one command.

"Isn't this slower than just running kubectl?" For a one-off fix, maybe. For sustainable operations at scale, GitOps wins every time.

Ready to implement GitOps without the learning curve? Talk to us about how we set up GitOps pipelines in days, not months.