operator-sdk: Controller fails on empty manifest files from a Helm Chart

Bug Report

What did you do? For each of the following cases I did these steps:

1. Created an Operator from a local helm chart: $ operator-sdk new my-operator --type=helm --helm-chart <local_helm_chart_path>
2. Deployed the CRD $ kubectl create -f deploy/crds/<resource>_crd.yaml
3. Started local operator $ operator-sdk run --local
4. Create the CR kubectl create -f deploy/crds/<resource>_cr.yaml

Case 1: A file containing a resource is empty due to a conditional

• myvalue is not set

{{ if .Values.myvalue }}
# entire resource goes here
# ...
{{ end }}

Case 2: There is an empty manifest from --- markers

---

---
# valid resources go here
# ...

What did you expect to see?

• The controller ignores the empty resources

What did you see instead? Under which circumstances? Some of the resources were deployed but I saw the following error messages repeatedly printed… Case 1:

{"level":"error",
"ts":1583340099.203393,
"logger":"helm.controller",
"msg":"Release failed",
"namespace":"default",
"name":"example-product",
"apiVersion":"domain.com/v1alpha1",
"kind":"Product",
"release":"example-product",
"error":"failed to install release: no objects visited",
"stacktrace":"github.com/go-logr/zapr.(*zapLogger).Error\n\tpkg/mod/github.com/go-logr/zapr@v0.1.1/zapr.go:128\ngithub.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk/pkg/helm/controller.HelmOperatorReconciler.Reconcile\n\tsrc/github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk/pkg/helm/controller/reconcile.go:194\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller).reconcileHandler\n\tpkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.4.0/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:256\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller).processNextWorkItem\n\tpkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.4.0/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:232\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller).worker\n\tpkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.4.0/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:211\nk8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait.JitterUntil.func1\n\tpkg/mod/k8s.io/apimachinery@v0.0.0-20191004115801-a2eda9f80ab8/pkg/util/wait/wait.go:152\nk8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait.JitterUntil\n\tpkg/mod/k8s.io/apimachinery@v0.0.0-20191004115801-a2eda9f80ab8/pkg/util/wait/wait.go:153\nk8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait.Until\n\tpkg/mod/k8s.io/apimachinery@v0.0.0-20191004115801-a2eda9f80ab8/pkg/util/wait/wait.go:88"}

Case 2:

{"level":"error",
"ts":1583340147.234184,
"logger":"helm.controller",
"msg":"Failed to run release hook",
"namespace":"default",
"name":"example-product",
"apiVersion":"domain.com/v1alpha1",
"kind":"Product",
"release":"example-product",
"error":"no matches for kind \"\" in version \"\"",
"stacktrace":"github.com/go-logr/zapr.(*zapLogger).Error\n\tpkg/mod/github.com/go-logr/zapr@v0.1.1/zapr.go:128\ngithub.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk/pkg/helm/controller.HelmOperatorReconciler.Reconcile\n\tsrc/github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk/pkg/helm/controller/reconcile.go:308\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller).reconcileHandler\n\tpkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.4.0/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:256\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller).processNextWorkItem\n\tpkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.4.0/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:232\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller).worker\n\tpkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.4.0/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:211\nk8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait.JitterUntil.func1\n\tpkg/mod/k8s.io/apimachinery@v0.0.0-20191004115801-a2eda9f80ab8/pkg/util/wait/wait.go:152\nk8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait.JitterUntil\n\tpkg/mod/k8s.io/apimachinery@v0.0.0-20191004115801-a2eda9f80ab8/pkg/util/wait/wait.go:153\nk8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait.Until\n\tpkg/mod/k8s.io/apimachinery@v0.0.0-20191004115801-a2eda9f80ab8/pkg/util/wait/wait.go:88"}

Environment

• operator-sdk version:

$ operator-sdk version
operator-sdk version: "v0.15.2", commit: "ffaf278993c8fcb00c6f527c9f20091eb8dd3352", go version: "go1.13.8 darwin/amd64"

• go version:

$ go version
go version go1.13.8 darwin/amd64

• Kubernetes version information:

$ kubectl version
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"16", GitVersion:"v1.16.2", GitCommit:"c97fe5036ef3df2967d086711e6c0c405941e14b", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2019-10-15T23:43:08Z", GoVersion:"go1.12.10", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"darwin/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"15+", GitVersion:"v1.15.9-gke.9", GitCommit:"a9973cbb2722793e2ea08d20880633ca61d3e669", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-02-07T22:35:02Z", GoVersion:"go1.12.12b4", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

• Are you writing your operator in ansible, helm, or go?

$ helm version
version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.0.1", GitCommit:"7c22ef9ce89e0ebeb7125ba2ebf7d421f3e82ffa", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.13.4"}

Possible Solution

• If a manifest is empty then do not attempt to reconcile it in the cluster

Additional context