Helm 3: security fixes now end February 10, 2027
The Helm maintainers updated the Helm 3 timeline. The first plan ended security fixes in November 2026. The new date is February 10, 2027. The final Helm 3 minor release, limited to Kubernetes client library updates, was September 9, 2026. From then on only security patches ship, as needed.
The project expects most Helm 3 charts and workflows to work with Helm 4, and Helm 4 can manage existing Helm 3 releases without migration steps. These are the breaking changes to test:
| Area | Change in Helm 4 |
|---|---|
| Post-renderers | --post-renderer takes a plugin name, not an executable path |
| Flags | --atomic is --rollback-on-failure, --force is --force-replace |
| Registry login | helm registry login takes domain names only |
Example
Illustrative. 3 clusters and 9 CI jobs call Helm. Find every binary first, run one chart with its post-renderer on staging, then move the jobs in groups of 3.
Important
The old flags still work but emit deprecation warnings, so a green pipeline can hide them. Check your cluster too: Helm 4.3.x supports Kubernetes 1.37.x to 1.34.x.
Before you move
- ☐ Run helm version in every CI image
- ☐ Search scripts for --atomic and --force
- ☐ List post-renderer usage
- ☐ Test registry login with domain names
Gantt chart — one row per cluster and job →
Source: helm.sh, Helm 3 End of Life (June 2, 2026); Helm docs, Version Skew.