knit is a tool containing the missing pieces for using KCL to define kubernetes manifests when using the rendered manifests pattern.
It knits together Helm and Kustomize, with KCL to help keep code manageable and most imortantly, type-safe.
KCL is a configuration language and a CNCF sandbox project. It is used as the way to define your data structures empowered with modern language features to enable you to write DRY code.
knit incorporates Helm so that you can leverage existing charts in KCL without having to run a pipeline such as helm template | kcl import. Instead, you can add helm charts using knit add helm which will create a vendored KCL module for the chart which you can import. Then you can render out the chart using the helm.template() function within your KCL when knit render is run.
knit also includes functions to interact with Kustomize to enable you to use existing transformations and overlays without requiring a full migration to KCL templating or to empower your KCL code with Kustomize features. Use the kustomize.build() function to run a kustomization.
If you’d like to contribute to the project, please contact me on the CNCF slack @Tom van Dinther. In the meantime, see you at the KCL slack channel #kcl!