GitOps is a declarative, Git-based operational framework for managing infrastructure and applications, where Git serves as the single source of truth for the entire system's desired state. Born from Kubernetes workflows, GitOps combines version control, automation, and continuous reconciliation to ensure what's running in your cluster always matches what's defined in Git — making deployments auditable, reproducible, and easily reversible. Unlike traditional CI/CD where pipelines push changes, GitOps operators pull changes from Git and continuously enforce the declared state, enabling self-healing infrastructure that automatically corrects drift when manual changes occur. As of 2026, over 64% of enterprises use GitOps as their primary delivery mechanism, with the ecosystem expanding beyond Kubernetes into full infrastructure management via tools like Crossplane, Terraform, and OpenTofu.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers
This topic spans 22 focused tables and 145 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.
Table 1: Core Principles
| Principle | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
apiVersion: apps/v1kind: Deploymentspec: replicas: 3 | System's entire desired state is expressed declaratively in Git using configuration files (YAML, JSON) — defines what should exist, not how to create it. | |
Git commit: f3a9b12 → rollback via git revert f3a9b12 | • All state declarations are stored in Git with full version history • every change is tracked, auditable, and reversible using standard Git operations. |