Hi,

index is already on downloads.apache.org (
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/polaris/helm-chart/index.yaml
, dist is basically the "driver" of downloads.apache.org).

I see only two possible options:
- we don't provide the Helm index (it's what Airflow is doing afair), but
the user experience is not great (helm repo add would not work "out of the
box")
- we create aggregate Helm index when staging a release, and so we keep the
index up to date, to be updated on downloads/dist release

Regards
JB

On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 5:23 PM Dmitri Bourlatchkov <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Thanks for opening this discussion, Robert! It definitely looks like we can
> improve helm UX.
>
> All:
>
> WDYT about hosting helm index for all supported releases on
> downloads.apache.org (as before), but moving old charts to the archive?
>
> When a new RC comes out it will have helm index updates according to what
> version is the latest at the time of release and some links (re-)pointing
> to the archive. When the RC is approved, its helm index will simply replace
> the old one on downloads.apache.org.
>
> The archive site will _not_ have a helm index, only chart tar files,
> signatures, etc.
>
> Link changes should not be a problem for automated tools, I hope.
>
> The helm index will be truncated as the community decides to "unsupport"
> old releases (with proper release note notifications, etc.).
>
> Cheers,
> Dmitri.
>
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 6:43 AM Robert Stupp <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > The issue #3500 mentions an issue with (perma)links to Helm charts to
> > downloads.a.o. Once a new release is published, the previously working
> link
> > will no longer work, as old releases, although available on archive.a.o
> get
> > removed from downloads.a.o. That's just how it works.
> >
> > For helm charts referenced by their URL and potential user-automation to
> > grab other binary artifacts, a new release kind-of "suddenly" breaks user
> > environments/workflows.
> >
> > What do you guys think about the following?
> >
> > We can attach the binary artifacts to GitHub releases and/or publish
> those
> > to Maven Central - and adjust the documented download links to either of
> > these locations?
> >
> > For the Helm charts, the situation is a bit more complex, because of the
> > index.yaml. While it is correct on downloads.a.o [1], the one on
> > archive.a.o [2] is missing older releases. But since the content of
> > archive.a.o is taken from downloads.a.o, there's not much we can do about
> > it.
> > An option could be to have an index.yaml elsewhere, potentially on a
> > separate web site like https://polaris-charts.apache.org/ that only
> > contains an ever-growing index.yaml file, which is updated during a
> release
> > publication using 'helm repo index . --merge index.yaml --url ...', where
> > that URL points to the helm package, which can be a GitHub release
> artifact
> > or some other location.
> >
> > Robert
> >
> > [3500] https://github.com/apache/polaris/issues/3500
> > [1] https://downloads.apache.org/incubator/polaris/helm-chart/index.yaml
> > [2]
> > https://archive.apache.org/dist/incubator/polaris/helm-chart/index.yaml
> >
>

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