Reloader

📢 Reloader v2 is here

Reloader v2, rebuilt on the Operator SDK, has been released. All new development happens on the v2 branch.

The master branch (Reloader v1) is feature-frozen and will only receive security and critical bug fixes. Please open new feature requests and pull requests against v2, and see the contribution guide for branch and PR title rules.

🔁 What is Reloader?

Reloader is a Kubernetes controller that automatically triggers rollouts of workloads (like Deployments, StatefulSets, and more) whenever referenced Secrets, ConfigMaps or optionally CSI-mounted secrets are updated.

In a traditional Kubernetes setup, updating a Secret or ConfigMap does not automatically restart or redeploy your workloads. This can lead to stale configurations running in production, especially when dealing with dynamic values like credentials, feature flags, or environment configs.

Reloader bridges that gap by ensuring your workloads stay in sync with configuration changes — automatically and safely.

📚 Full documentation is available at Stakater documentation site

🚀 Why Reloader?

• ✅ Zero manual restarts: No need to manually rollout workloads after config/secret changes.
• 🔒 Secure by design: Ensure your apps always use the most up-to-date credentials or tokens.
• 🛠️ Flexible: Works with all major workload types — Deployment, StatefulSet, Daemonset, ArgoRollout, and more.
• ⚡ Fast feedback loop: Ideal for CI/CD pipelines where secrets/configs change frequently.
• 🔄 Out-of-the-box integration: Just label your workloads and let Reloader do the rest.

🔧 How It Works?

flowchart LR
  ExternalSecret -->|Creates| Secret
  SealedSecret -->|Creates| Secret
  Certificate -->|Creates| Secret
  Secret -->|Watched by| Reloader
  ConfigMap -->|Watched by| Reloader

  Reloader -->|Triggers Rollout| Deployment
  Reloader -->|Triggers Rollout| DeploymentConfig
  Reloader -->|Triggers Rollout| Daemonset
  Reloader -->|Triggers Rollout| Statefulset
  Reloader -->|Triggers Rollout| ArgoRollout
  Reloader -->|Triggers Job| CronJob
  Reloader -->|Sends Notification| Slack,Teams,Webhook

• Sources like ExternalSecret, SealedSecret, or Certificate from cert-manager can create or manage Kubernetes Secrets — but they can also be created manually or delivered through GitOps workflows.
• Secrets and ConfigMaps are watched by Reloader.
• When changes are detected, Reloader automatically triggers a rollout of the associated workloads, ensuring your app always runs with the latest configuration.

🏢 Reloader Enterprise

Reloader OSS is free and production-proven with 24B+ downloads.

For teams with stricter requirements:

Need	Enterprise
CVE-free, signed images with SBOM	✅
SLA-backed support from Kubernetes experts	✅
Artifact provenance for compliance audits	✅
Dedicated escalation path	✅

→ Contact Sales for info about Reloader Enterprise.

⚡ Quick Start

1. Install Reloader

Follow any of this installation options.

2. Annotate Your Workload

To enable automatic reload for a Deployment:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: my-app
  annotations:
    reloader.stakater.com/auto: "true"
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: my-app
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: your-image
          envFrom:
            - configMapRef:
                name: my-config
            - secretRef:
                name: my-secret

This tells Reloader to watch the ConfigMap and Secret referenced in this deployment. When either is updated, it will trigger a rollout.

🧩 Usage

Reloader supports multiple annotation-based controls to let you customize when and how your Kubernetes workloads are reloaded upon changes in Secrets or ConfigMaps.

Kubernetes does not trigger pod restarts when a referenced Secret or ConfigMap is updated. Reloader bridges this gap by watching for changes and automatically performing rollouts — but it gives you full control via annotations, so you can:

• Reload all resources by default
• Restrict reloads to only Secrets or only ConfigMaps
• Watch only specific resources
• Use opt-in via tagging (search + match)
• Exclude workloads you don’t want to reload

1. 🔁 Automatic Reload (Default)

Use these annotations to automatically restart the workload when referenced Secrets or ConfigMaps change.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗