CheckOps home

Tools directory

C

CheckOps

chart-testing

chart-testing (ct) is an Apache-2.0 CLI from the Helm project for linting and install-testing Helm charts changed in a pull request, typically on a kind cluster.

Visit website

Latest public signals

Not refreshed yet. Refresh reads the public site and, when the entry has a GitHub repository, the latest release.

Visit Website

Introduction

chart-testing, or ct, is the Helm project’s CLI for linting and testing Helm charts. It is designed for chart repositories and monorepos: it detects which charts changed compared with a target branch and tests only those.

ct lint runs helm lint, validates Chart.yaml against a schema, checks maintainers and enforces version bumps. ct install installs each changed chart into a cluster (often kind), runs helm test hooks, optionally tests upgrades from the previous version, and cleans up. The official chart-testing GitHub Action wraps it for CI.

In the quality loop it is the integration test for charts, confirming they actually install and pass their own tests.

The source code is at helm/chart-testing on GitHub under the Apache-2.0 licence, with about 1,600 stars; the most recent commit was on 10 November 2026.

Features

  1. Change detection: Tests only charts changed against a target branch.
  2. Lint: helm lint plus schema and version checks.
  3. Install tests: Install charts and run helm test hooks.
  4. Upgrade tests: Upgrade from the previous chart version.
  5. Values files: Test multiple ci/*-values.yaml configurations.
  6. GitHub Action: Official action for CI.

Pros

  1. Official tooling: Maintained under the Helm organisation.
  2. Free to use: Open source under the Apache-2.0 licence, so the core tool costs nothing to use.
  3. Actively maintained: The repository had commits as recent as 10 November 2026.

Cons

  1. Cluster required: Install tests need a cluster.
  2. Repo conventions: Assumes a chart repository layout.
  3. Slower: Real installs take minutes.
ct lint --target-branch main
kind create cluster
ct install --target-branch main --upgrade

Resources:

Pricing

chart-testing is free and open source under the Apache-2.0 licence.

  1. Helm chart repositories with many charts.
  2. Teams that want install and upgrade tests in pull requests.

Conclusion

chart-testing is the standard way to lint and install-test changed charts.

Pair it with helm-unittest for fast template-level checks.

On CheckOps, chart-testing is filed under the Integration testing and Release & CI gates stages. Related tools listed here include KUTTL, Chainsaw, kind, helm-unittest, kubeconform and kube-score. A short trial on a real project, with your own code, data and pipeline, is usually the fastest way to choose between them, because fit matters more than feature lists. Facts here come from the official site, documentation and repository, checked on 11 November 2026.

Alternatives

Other tools on CheckOps that cover similar ground. Open a page, or compare one with chart-testing side by side.