Listing & Inspecting Releases

helm list shows installed releases; helm status shows the details, notes, and resources for one release.

Syntax

helm list [-A]
helm status <release>

Once you have releases running, two commands help you see what is going on.

helm list

helm list shows releases in the current namespace: their name, revision, status, chart, and app version. Add --all-namespaces (or -A) to see everything in the cluster.

helm status

helm status <release> shows the deploy status, the last deployment time, and the chart's NOTES.txt output — often the instructions for reaching your app.

Getting the raw pieces

helm get values <release> — the values that were used.
helm get manifest <release> — the rendered manifests.
helm history <release> — every revision.

Example

# List releases in the current namespace
helm list

# List releases across every namespace
helm list --all-namespaces

# Show status and NOTES for one release
helm status my-web

# See the values that were applied
helm get values my-web

When to use it

An SRE runs helm list across all namespaces to get a quick inventory of every managed release before a planned maintenance window.
A developer runs helm status my-app to read the NOTES.txt output printed by the chart author explaining how to reach the just-installed service.
An operator checks helm list to confirm a release is in 'deployed' state after a CI pipeline completes before marking the deployment as successful.

More examples

List all releases

Shows every Helm release cluster-wide, then scopes to one namespace and formats the output as a table.

helm list --all-namespaces
helm list -n production --output table

Show release status and notes

Displays the current state, last deployed time, revision number, and the chart's NOTES.txt for the my-postgres release.

helm status my-postgres -n data

Show failed and pending releases

Filters releases by failed status to find broken deployments; -a also shows superseded and deleted releases.

helm list --all-namespaces --filter '.*' \
  --selector 'status=failed'
helm list --all-namespaces -a

Discussion

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