GitOps Stack (ArgoCD + Terraform)

The GitOps stack with ArgoCD and Terraform manages both infrastructure and application delivery declaratively, with Git as the single source of truth. Terraform provisions cloud and platform infrastructure as code, and ArgoCD continuously reconciles the desired state stored in Git with the live state of Kubernetes clusters. Changes are made by committing to Git and merging pull requests, not by running ad-hoc kubectl commands or clicking in cloud consoles.

Components

• Terraform: declarative infrastructure as code that provisions and versions cloud resources, networks, clusters, and managed services with a planned, reviewable apply and managed state.
• ArgoCD: a Kubernetes-native GitOps controller that watches Git repositories of manifests, Helm charts, or Kustomize and continuously syncs cluster state to match, detecting and correcting drift.
• Git: the source of truth holding both infrastructure and application desired state, with pull requests, reviews, and history as the change-control mechanism.
• Kubernetes: the runtime ArgoCD reconciles against; Helm and Kustomize template and parameterize the application manifests across environments.
• CI: builds and tests container images and updates manifests with new image tags, which ArgoCD then deploys automatically.

Strengths

Git as the source of truth gives a complete audit trail, trivial rollback (revert a commit), and review-based change control for both infrastructure and applications. ArgoCD's continuous reconciliation detects and corrects configuration drift automatically and visualizes sync and health status per application. Terraform brings the same declarative, planned rigor to infrastructure across hundreds of providers. Together they make deployments repeatable, auditable, and self-documenting, and they cleanly separate CI (build and test) from CD (deploy and reconcile), which improves both security and clarity of responsibility.

Trade-offs

There are two reconciliation models — Terraform's plan/apply and ArgoCD's continuous sync — and deciding where each owns state, especially the cluster itself and its bootstrap resources, takes careful design. Terraform state management, locking, and drift outside Git remain real operational concerns. GitOps adds repository structure, tooling, and process overhead that is overkill for very small or single-environment setups. Secrets handling needs extra tooling such as Sealed Secrets, Vault, or an external secrets operator, since plaintext secrets must never live in Git.

When to Use It

Choose ArgoCD + Terraform GitOps for Kubernetes-based platforms where you want auditable, declarative, drift-corrected delivery of both infrastructure and applications. It suits teams running multiple clusters or environments that value review-based change control, easy rollback, and a clear audit trail for compliance. For simple, single-environment apps or non-Kubernetes deployment targets, lighter traditional CI/CD pipelines may be sufficient and less complex to operate. It pays off most in regulated or multi-team environments where a reviewable, reversible, and fully auditable change history for both infrastructure and applications is a hard requirement rather than a nicety. A clear repository structure that separates infrastructure, platform, and application concerns is what keeps GitOps maintainable as the number of services and environments grows.