What is GitOps and How to Use it?

30 Jul 2025

Hostman Team

GitOps is a new way of managing cloud infrastructure and deploying applications. Built on some familiar and recognizable developer workflows, GitOps helps you automate infrastructure changes, improve system reliability, and simplify continuous delivery.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn what GitOps is, how it works, the tools behind it, and how to implement a GitOps pipeline using Kubernetes and Hostman-compatible workflows.

GitOps working scheme

Key Takeaways

GitOps uses Git as the single source of truth for infrastructure and deployment.
It relies on declarative configurations and automatic reconciliation.
GitOps enables auditability, rollback, and faster deployments.
It works particularly well with Kubernetes and cloud-native environments.
Tools like Argo CD, Flux, and Helm are commonly used in GitOps pipelines.

What Is GitOps?

GitOps is a set of practices that uses Git repositories to manage both application code and infrastructure configurations. With its help, developers can get rid of using traditional manual revisions or ad hoc scripts, GitOps relies on Git as the authoritative source for your system’s desired state. This means your cluster configuration, deployment manifests, Helm charts, and more are stored and managed within a single Git repo.

So, when you need to update infrastructure or release a new application version, you simply commit a change to Git. GitOps controllers then detect the change and automatically update the live environment to match. This shift brings the principles of software development—such as version control, collaboration, and CI/CD—to operations teams.

GitOps is especially valuable in cloud-native environments, where teams work with Kubernetes or similar orchestration tools.

GitOps Definition

GitOps is a kind of workflow where infrastructure is treated as code (not as a full app or environment), stored in Git. It also reconciles with the actual running environment. This ensures consistency, traceability, and security throughout the deployment lifecycle.

How Does GitOps Work?

GitOps was created as the main tool to control your apps and infrastructure like the unified entity, which you control from a single Git repository. But how does it work? It’s simple - continuous reconciliation. A GitOps controller constantly checks for differences between the actual state of your infrastructure and the desired state stored in Git.

If the live state drifts (due to unnecessary or planned changes) the controller detects the inconsistency and automatically reverts the environment back to the last known perfect state as defined in Git. This is something that makes GitOps a very useful tool.

What Are the Main GitOps Tools?

GitOps relies on several open-source tools that integrate with your existing CI/CD stack. Here's a quick overview of the most popular options:

Argo CD

Argo CD is a declarative continuous delivery tool built for Kubernetes. It syncs your manifests from Git to your clusters and helps you visualize deployment status.

Flux

Flux automates Kubernetes deployments using Git as the source of truth. It's lightweight and integrates well with Helm charts.

Helm

Helm is a Kubernetes package manager. It makes application definitions simpler and is often used in GitOps to manage complex deployments.

Terraform

Let’s not forget that Terraform is not GitOps-native, It’s mainly used in GitOps pipelines for managing infrastructure outside Kubernetes, for example DNS.

Quick Overview of the GitOps Workflow

A typical GitOps workflow involves several tightly integrated steps that form a reliable deployment pipeline. Let’s walk through the process from code commit to live deployment.

A developer writes code and pushes it to a Git repository.
A CI pipeline builds the code, creates a container image, and pushes it to a container registry.
A change is made to a Kubernetes manifest or Helm chart in the Git repository.
A GitOps controller (e.g., Argo CD or Flux) detects the change and applies it to the cluster.
The cluster state is now aligned with the desired state declared in Git.

The separation between CI and CD in this model ensures that your team remains focused on writing and testing code, while deployment and environment reconciliation are fully automated. This reduces risk, accelerates delivery, and improves infrastructure transparency.

Benefits of GitOps

GitOps offers several advantages for modern DevOps teams:

Developer productivity: If you are already familiar with Git, you can easily apply your knowledge.
Auditability: You can track and backup every change that was made during the development.
Rollback support: You can easily revert changes at any moment if you need to..
Security: You can control access of your repositories all by yourself, without someone crushing into your code.
Faster recovery: Everything is "on the air live”, so if you need to backup your file faster.

How to Set Up a GitOps Pipeline

Here’s a basic example of setting up a GitOps pipeline using Argo CD on a Kubernetes cluster. For Hostman, you can adapt these steps using custom infrastructure.

Step 1: Install Argo CD

Create a namespace for Argo CD:

kubectl create namespace argocd

Install Argo CD:

kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Step 2: Access the Argo CD UI

Forward the Argo CD API server port:

kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8080:443

Visit https://localhost:8080 in your browser. Login with the default admin user and password (retrieved from the secret).

How to Use GitOps with Kubernetes

Now let’s connect your Git repository to Argo CD to start syncing Kubernetes manifests.

Step 1: Define Your App Configuration

In your Git repo, create a Kubernetes manifest, for example deployment.yaml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: hostman-web
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: hostman-web
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: hostman-web
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: web
          image: hostman/web-app:latest

Commit and push the file to Git.

Step 2: Create the Argo CD Application

Use the Argo CD CLI or web UI to create a new application:

argocd app create hostman-web \
  --repo https://github.com/your-user/your-repo.git \
  --path ./k8s \
  --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc \
  --dest-namespace default

Synchronize the app:

argocd app sync hostman-web

Argo CD will now monitor your repo and update the deployment automatically.

Are There Disadvantages of GitOps?

While GitOps offers many benefits, there are some challenges to consider:

Git conflicts: When multiple teams edit code it can lead to some troubleshooting.
Secret management: Git is a more “social” tool, when it comes to storing your secrets, so it’s better to use something else.
Complexity at scale: Managing many environments and repositories sometimes becomes chaotic without proper management.

Planning ahead and using a modular approach (e.g., mono or multi-repo strategies) can help mitigate these issues.

Summary

GitOps the bringer of power of Git to your infrastructures. GitOps is seeing your infrastructure as code and automates reconciliation, also let’s not forget that this instrument can enhance visibility, consistency, and deployment speed of your state of art work.

FAQ

What exactly is GitOps?

GitOps is a tool to manage infrastructure and deployments using Git as the single source of truth.

Is GitOps only for Kubernetes?

While GitOps is a perfect fit for Kubernetes (because of its declarative nature), it’s not limited to it. You can apply GitOps principles to other infrastructure types too.

What tools do I need to start with GitOps?

Popular GitOps tools include Argo CD, Flux, and Jenkins X. If you're using Hostman, you can easily integrate Git-based workflows with Kubernetes and start automating deployments right away.

Do I need to change how I write code?

Not really. GitOps works with the Git workflows you're already using — like branches, pull requests, and commits. What changes is how those commits impact your infrastructure: once merged, your environment syncs with your repo automatically.

What is GitOps and How to Use it?

Key Takeaways Copy link

What Is GitOps? Copy link

GitOps Definition Copy link

How Does GitOps Work? Copy link

What Are the Main GitOps Tools? Copy link