> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://devopscube.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What is Helm NOTES.txt and How Do You Create One? - URL: https://devopscube.com/helm-notes-txt-file/ - Published: 2026-05-24T11:15:06.000Z - Updated: 2026-05-25T05:04:07.000Z - Author: Aswin Vijayan - Tags: #syntax-highlight, #blog, #kubernetes, helm When you install a [Helm Chart](https://devopscube.com/create-helm-chart/), at the end of the deployment you usually see operational instructions in your terminal like what to do next, commands to check the service health, Chart repository, etc. This is done by via NOTES.txt in Helm chart. In this blog, you will learn about: - What is Helm Notes.txt - How it works and its use cases - How to view notes before and after chart installation. - Simple hands-on guide to show the Notes.txt functionality. - How to suppress notes output Lets get started. ## What is NOTES.txt in Helm Chart? Lets understand NOTES.txt with a use case. Lets say you are developing a Helm chart to deploy a backend application. After the chart deployment, you want to print the the key details about the deployment like its configured DNS endpoint, API paths etc.. **`NOTES.txt`** solves this. **`NOTES.txt`** is an **optional text file** in the Helm chart that contains the **post install instructions** that is displayed in the terminal after a successful Helm deployment or upgrade command. We need to add **`NOTES.txt`** under templates as shown below. ```bash web-app/ ├── Chart.yaml ├── values.yaml └── templates/ ├── deployment.yaml ├── service.yaml └── NOTES.txt ``` **`NOTES.txt`** is processed with **Helm rendering engine** even though it is text file. So it supports **GO templating.** Instead of sending anything to [Kubernetes](https://devopscube.com/kubernetes-tutorials-beginners/) API, it just **prints the rendered output to the terminal** with the operational instructions you added to it. With Go templating support, it can get dynamic values like release name, namespace used, Chart.yaml, values.yaml, etc.. You can also make use of values from the [\_helpers.tpl named templates](https://devopscube.com/%5Fhelpers-tpl-file-in-helm-charts/). This way the outputs can add more value to chart users. ![image illustrating the helm notes.txt workflow](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5f/2f/5f2f4d20-2abf-4534-8d40-7aa233aedd43/content/images/2026/05/image-58.png) ## NOTES.txt Example The best way to understand **`NOTES.txt`** is through community Helm Charts. If you download any **community Helm charts**, you can find this file under **`/templates`** folder with other template files. For example, Grafana's Helm charts NOTES.txt file gives you the post install [kubectl](https://devopscube.com/kubectl-set-context/) commands to get the admin password as shown below. ![example helm output based on the context in notes.txt](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5f/2f/5f2f4d20-2abf-4534-8d40-7aa233aedd43/content/images/2026/05/image-43.png) Here is a custom **`NOTES.txt`** example for your reference. It is a combination of plain text instructions and Go templates to get the rendered chart values dynamically. ```bash 1. Get the application URL: {{- if .Values.ingress.enabled }} http://{{ .Values.ingress.host }} {{- else }} export POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods --namespace {{ .Release.Namespace }} \ -l "app.kubernetes.io/name={{ .Chart.Name }}" \ -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}") kubectl --namespace {{ .Release.Namespace }} port-forward $POD_NAME 8080 {{- end }} 2. Get the admin password: kubectl get secret --namespace {{ .Release.Namespace }} {{ .Release.Name }} \ -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode ; echo 3. Check the pod status: kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name={{ .Chart.Name }} \ -n {{ .Release.Namespace }} ``` It prints the following. - Ingress URL - How to get the admin password. - How to validate deployment by checking the pod status. Now that you have an understanding of how NOTES.txt works, let's do a simple hands-on in the next section. ## Viewing Notes Before Installation If you want to render the post installation instruction from the Notes.txt before the chart installation, you need to perform a dry run. For example, here is the command that displays the notes of the [Prometheus helm chart.](https://devopscube.com/setup-prometheus-helm-chart/) ``` helm install prometheus prometheus-community/prometheus \ --dry-run --debug ``` Post installation there is a helm command to render the notes that we will look at it in the next section. ## Helm NOTES.txt Hands-on Example In this section, we will create a Helm chart boilerplate with NOTES.txt and modify it to print the custom information we add to it. ### Step 1: Create a Helm Boilerplate Run the following command to create a boilerplate. ```bash helm create web-app ``` ### Step 2: Modify the Existing NOTES.txt file Open the NOTES.txt file in an editor. ```bash vi web-app/templates/NOTES.txt ``` Replace the default notes with the following content. It contains plain text and Go template to get the Dynamic chart information. ```bash Release "{{ .Release.Name }}" deployed to namespace "{{ .Release.Namespace }}". ------------------------------------------------------- Get the secret your app uses: kubectl get secret {{ .Release.Name }}-secret \ -n {{ .Release.Namespace }} \ -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode This decodes and prints the password your app is reading from Kubernetes Secrets. ------------------------------------------------------- Check if your app is healthy: kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name={{ .Chart.Name }} \ -n {{ .Release.Namespace }} This lists all pods for this release. STATUS should show "Running" and READY should show "1/1" before you send any traffic. ------------------------------------------------------- ``` You can validate the Notes using the following dry-run command. ```bash helm install web-app ./web-app -n frontend --create-namespace --dry-run --debug ``` ### Step 3: Deploy the Helm Chart Now, run the following command to deploy the chart. ```bash helm install web-app ./web-app -n frontend --create-namespace ``` After installation, you will see the information in the **`NOTES.txt`** file in the output as shown below. ```bash NAME: web-app LAST DEPLOYED: Wed May 20 11:15:17 2026 NAMESPACE: frontend STATUS: deployed REVISION: 1 DESCRIPTION: Install complete NOTES: Release "web-app" deployed to namespace "frontend". ------------------------------------------------------- Get the secret your app uses: kubectl get secret web-app-secret \ -n frontend \ -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode This decodes and prints the password your app is reading from Kubernetes Secrets. ------------------------------------------------------- Check if your app is healthy: kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=web-app \ -n frontend This lists all pods for this release. STATUS should show "Running" and READY should show "1/1" before you send any traffic. ------------------------------------------------------- ``` ### Step 4: View Helm Notes After the chart installation, you can use the following command to view the notes again in the terminal. ```bash helm get notes web-app -n frontend ``` This will list only the notes, as shown below. ```bash NOTES: Release "web-app" deployed to namespace "frontend". ------------------------------------------------------- Get the secret your app uses: kubectl get secret web-app-secret \ -n frontend \ -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode This decodes and prints the password your app is reading from Kubernetes Secrets. ------------------------------------------------------- Check if your app is healthy: kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=web-app \ -n frontend This lists all pods for this release. STATUS should show "Running" and READY should show "1/1" before you send any traffic. ------------------------------------------------------- ``` ## Suppressing Notes When you use CI/CD tools like [Github actions](https://devopscube.com/docker-image-build-promotion-piepeline/) or [Jenkins](https://devopscube.com/jenkins-2-tutorials-getting-started-guide/), you might not want to clustter the output logs with notes output. In such scenarios you can suppress the notes using output redirection. Here is an example. ``` helm install web-app ./web-app -n frontend --create-namespace > /dev/null ``` 💡 In Helm 3, you can hide chart notes using the `--hide-notes` flag. However, [Helm 4](https://devopscube.com/install-configure-helm-kubernetes/) removed/deprecated this flag. So if you are using Helm 4, you need to use shell redirection as given above. ## Conclusion In this guide we looked at what is NOTES.txt and how to setup post installation instructions using NOTES.txt. If you are using community chart, pull the charts to local, modify the NOTES.txt as per your requirements and then deploy it. By doing this, you can remove all the unwanted information from the output and keep only the information that helps in moving forward smoothly.