GitOps Export

K8Cost turns recommendations into production-ready manifest patches that you can commit directly to your GitOps repository. No manual YAML editing required.

What It Does

When you approve a recommendation, K8Cost generates a patch that modifies the relevant Kubernetes resource. You choose the format that matches your deployment workflow, download the patch, and apply it through your existing CI/CD pipeline.

Supported Formats

Format	Use Case
YAML	Direct kubectl apply or plain manifest repositories
Helm Values	Override values files for Helm chart deployments
Kustomize	Overlay patches for Kustomize-based workflows
JSON Patch	RFC 6902 patches for programmatic application
Strategic Merge Patch	Kubernetes-native merge patches for partial updates

Key Capabilities

• Single or batch export -- Generate patches for one recommendation or select multiple and export them together
• Format auto-detection -- K8Cost suggests the right format based on your cluster's deployment metadata (Helm releases, Kustomize annotations)
• Preview before download -- See the exact patch content in the dashboard before exporting
• GitHub PR integration -- Create a pull request with the patch applied to the correct file in your repository
• GitLab MR integration -- Same workflow for GitLab-hosted repositories
• Download as file -- Export patches as individual files or a bundled archive

How It Works

K8Cost reads the current resource spec from the recommendation (e.g., a Deployment with resources.requests.cpu: 2000m) and generates a patch that modifies only the relevant fields (e.g., setting resources.requests.cpu: 500m). The patch preserves all other fields and metadata.

For Helm-based deployments, K8Cost generates a values override file rather than patching the rendered manifest, so the change flows through your Helm chart's templating logic.

Example: Kustomize Overlay

# kustomize-patch.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: api-server
  namespace: production
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: api-server
          resources:
            requests:
              cpu: 500m
              memory: 512Mi
            limits:
              cpu: "1"
              memory: 1Gi

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