GitOps

GitOps is an operational framework that uses Git repositories as the single source of truth for defining infrastructure and application configurations. Rather than manually applying changes or running imperative deployment scripts, GitOps relies on automated agents that continuously monitor Git repositories and synchronize the actual system state with the desired state declared in version-controlled manifests.

By making Git the central authority for system configuration, GitOps brings familiar developer workflows—pull requests, code review, version history, and rollbacks—to infrastructure and operations. Every change is traceable, auditable, and reversible, providing strong guarantees around compliance, security, and disaster recovery.

Core Principles

Declarative Configuration: All system configuration is expressed declaratively using formats like YAML, JSON, or HCL. The desired state is fully captured in Git, describing what should exist rather than how to create it.

Version Control as Source of Truth: Git serves as the authoritative source for system state. Changes flow through Git workflows (branches, pull requests, merges) rather than direct manual interventions on production systems.

Automated Synchronization: GitOps operators or controllers continuously compare the desired state in Git with the actual cluster or infrastructure state, automatically applying changes to reconcile any drift. This pull-based model improves security by eliminating the need to expose cluster credentials to external CI/CD systems.

Continuous Reconciliation: GitOps agents continuously monitor for configuration drift—whether caused by manual changes, failures, or unauthorized modifications—and automatically restore the system to the declared state.

Argo CD and Flux are the leading GitOps tools for Kubernetes, providing automated deployment, synchronization, and monitoring capabilities. These tools watch Git repositories for changes and automatically apply updates to clusters. For broader infrastructure management, GitOps principles can be implemented using tools like Terraform with GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions.

GitOps builds on Infrastructure as Code principles and is closely associated with Kubernetes and Cloud Native architectures. It integrates with CI/CD pipelines, Platform Engineering workflows, and Automation practices to enable declarative, auditable deployments.