helm: template: ../secrets.yaml executing ..secrets.yaml" at : invalid value; expected string

helm version: Client: &version.Version{SemVer:“v2.16.1”, GitCommit:“bbdfe5e7803a12bbdf97e94cd847859890cf4050”, GitTreeState:“clean”} Server: &version.Version{SemVer:“v2.16.1”, GitCommit:“bbdfe5e7803a12bbdf97e94cd847859890cf4050”, GitTreeState:“clean”}

kubectl version Client Version: version.Info{Major:“1”, Minor:“16”, GitVersion:“v1.16.2”, GitCommit:“c97fe5036ef3df2967d086711e6c0c405941e14b”, GitTreeState:“clean”, BuildDate:“2019-10-15T19:09:08Z”, GoVersion:“go1.12.10”, Compiler:“gc”, Platform:“linux/amd64”} Server Version: version.Info{Major:“1”, Minor:“16”, GitVersion:“v1.16.2”, GitCommit:“c97fe5036ef3df2967d086711e6c0c405941e14b”, GitTreeState:“clean”, BuildDate:“2019-10-15T19:09:08Z”, GoVersion:“go1.12.10”, Compiler:“gc”, Platform:“linux/amd64”}

Cloud Provider/Platform (AKS, GKE, Minikube etc.): VMWare Virtual machine

I’m trying to implement a simple secret in Helm chart and its been elusive so far. Steps done:

1. Installed gpg and configured with default values
2. Created helm_vars folder inside the base folder where templates and Chart.yaml file reside
3. create .sops.yaml file inside helm_vars with creation_rules
4. create secrets.yaml file with mysecret:mypassword in it
5. run “helm secrets enc secrets.yaml” and see that it encrypts properly
6. create secrets.yaml file inside of templates folder

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  annotations:
  labels:
    chart: "{{ .Chart.Name }}-{{ .Chart.Version }}"
    release: "{{ .Release.Name }}"
    heritage: "{{ .Release.Service }}"
  name: mytestpwd
type: Opaque
data:
  mysecret: {{ .Values.mysecret | b64enc  | quote }}

1. Inside of deplyoment.yaml in templates folder, added this piece of code

        env:
           - name: SOMEPASSWORD
             valueFrom:
               secretKeyRef:
               name: mytestpwd
               key: mysecret
  

When I do a dry run or run helm template, get this error

Error: render error in “testsec/templates/secrets.yaml”: template: testsec/templates/secrets.yaml:12:34: executing “testsec/templates/secrets.yaml” at <b64enc>: invalid value; expected string

When I pass the value explicitly “helm template testsec --set-string mysecret=“thepassword””, then it works fine which confirms that it is not able to retrieve .Values.mysecret . When | b64enc is removed, it runs fine but doesnt have any value inside.

Ideally I think .Values.mysecret inside of templates folder should reference the mysecret value inside of helm_vars folder correct? Seems like it isn’t. I see that this happens with helm version 3.0.0 and also 2.15.1 which says that I’m performing some steps wrong. Any help is appreciated.