What is GitOps? How does it differ from traditional CI/CD deployment?

GitOps Core Philosophy

Git is the single source of truth. The desired state of the system is entirely defined by the Git repository, and all changes are made through Git operations (PR/merge).

GitOps vs Traditional CI/CD

Aspect	Traditional Push-based CI/CD	GitOps Pull-based
Deployment trigger	Pipeline actively pushes to cluster	Agent continuously pulls Git state
Cluster access	CI system needs cluster credentials	Cluster only needs Git read access
Drift detection	None	Agent auto-detects and reconciles drift
Audit trail	CI logs	Git commit history
Rollback method	Re-run old pipeline	git revert

GitOps Workflow

1. Developer modifies Kubernetes YAML or Helm values
2. Submits Pull Request, reviewed and merged to main
3. GitOps Agent (ArgoCD/Flux) detects the Git change
4. Agent compares Git desired state vs current cluster state
5. Automatically syncs the cluster to the state defined in Git

Popular Tools

ArgoCD: UI-friendly, good for visually managing multiple clusters

Flux: More Kubernetes-native, better for highly automated environments

Key Advantages

• Better security: CI systems don't need to hold cluster credentials
• Self-healing: Manual cluster modifications are automatically reverted by the agent
• Full audit trail: All changes have a Git commit record