# Kube-Prometheus-Stack And ArgoCD 2.3 - How to remove a workaround

## !!Update!!

See my latest article on using `Server-Side apply``

%[https://blog.ediri.io/kube-prometheus-stack-and-argocd-25-server-side-apply-to-the-rescue]

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1647887851349/2B1wRBKHy.png)

This is an update of my previous article:

%[https://blog.ediri.io/kube-prometheus-stack-and-argocd-how-workarounds-are-born]

Because with the release of ArgoCD 2.3, we now have a better way to solve this issue.

![muppets-swedish-chef.gif](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1647887804783/3tLyWWYJB.gif)

This involves two easy steps in our recipe, with splitting the deployment in two sepereate ArgoCD `Applications`:

## Application I: skipCrds

With the pull request [#8012](https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/pull/8012), the team around ArgoCD introduced following cool feature: "feat: add skipCrds flag for helm charts". This means we can skip the installation of CRDs.

What are CRS, short refresher from the [official kubernetes documentation](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/api-extension/custom-resources/):

> **Custom Resources**

> Custom resources are extensions of the Kubernetes API. This page discusses when to add a custom resource to your Kubernetes cluster and when to use a standalone service. It describes the two methods for adding custom resources and how to choose between them.

Helm installs custom resource definitions in the `crds` folder by default if they are not existing and with `skipCrds` we can now control this behaviour.

To get `kube-prometheus-stack` working, we will set this flag to `false`. The first application defintions looks like this:

```yaml
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: kube-prometheus-stack
  annotations:
    argocd.argoproj.io/sync-wave: "3"
spec:
  destination:
    name: in-cluster
    namespace: monitoring
  project: default
  source:
    repoURL: 'https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts'
    targetRevision: 34.1.1
    helm:
      skipCrds: true
      values: |-
        #Snip the values
    chart: kube-prometheus-stack
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
```

## Application II: Sync options `Replace`

The second part, is to use `Replace` then by default, ArgoCD executes kubectl apply operation to apply the configuration stored in Git. This is now not suitable as the resource spec might is too big and won't fit into `kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration`.

If the `Replace=true` sync option is set, ArgoCD will use `kubectl replace` or `kubectl create` command to apply changes.

The second application defintion looks like this:

```yaml
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: kube-prometheus-stack-crds
  annotations:
    argocd.argoproj.io/sync-wave: "2"
spec:
  destination:
    name: in-cluster
    namespace: monitoring
  project: default
  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/prometheus-community/helm-charts.git
    path: charts/kube-prometheus-stack/crds/
    targetRevision: kube-prometheus-stack-34.1.1
    directory:
      recurse: true
  syncPolicy:
    syncOptions:
      - CreateNamespace=true
      - Replace=true
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
```
See the [documentation](https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user-guide/sync-options/#replace-resource-instead-of-applying-changes) for more details on sync options.

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1647888298229/khZS4NUSa.png)

## The End

No external code this time

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1647889501541/sBHBUe4nf.png)