Modern QA2026Best Practices Summary — tiles
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7.7Best Practices Summary

  1. Always lint before rendering -- helm lint --strict catches structural issues instantly.
  2. Render with all value files -- A chart that works with defaults but breaks with production values is a deployment risk.
  3. Pipe rendered output to kubeconform -- This catches Kubernetes schema issues that Helm does not check.
  4. Write unit tests for conditionals -- Every if/else in your templates needs a test for both branches.
  5. Test value validation -- If certain value combinations are invalid, ensure templates fail with clear error messages.
  6. Use chart-testing in CI -- Actual installation tests catch issues that static analysis misses.
  7. Pin dependency versions -- Use exact or range versions in Chart.yaml, never *.