Components

A component in AICR is a registry entry pointing to a Helm chart or Kustomize source that recipes can pull. The catalog lives in recipes/registry.yaml; per-component default values live under recipes/components/<name>/. Overlays bind a component to a cluster shape; bundlers turn that binding into a deployer-specific artifact.

Most components need no Go code. The declarative path is one registry entry plus a values.yaml. The legacy pkg/component/generic.go::ComponentConfig is marked Deprecated — it is unused in production. The live schema is pkg/recipe/components.go::ComponentConfig.

For the recipe data model — overlays, mixins, criteria, merge order — see /aicr/contributor-guide/recipes-overlays-and-mixins. This page is the contributor view for adding or changing components.

Where Does My Change Go?

Helm vs Kustomize

A component declares either helm: or kustomize: — never both. ComponentRegistry.Validate rejects the mixed shape at load.

Kustomize limitations to know up front:

• --set <key>:<path>=<value> flows through Helm value rendering only; Kustomize components silently ignore overrides.
• nodeScheduling.system / accelerated paths target Helm values; they do not apply to Kustomize sources.
• The bundler runs kustomize build at bundle time and wraps the output as templates/manifest.yaml inside the standard local-format folder (see /aicr/contributor-guide/architecture-overview for the classification rule).

Adding a Helm Component

1. Add the registry entry to recipes/registry.yaml:

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- name: my-operator
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  displayName: My Operator
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  valueOverrideKeys:
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    - myoperator
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  helm:
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    defaultRepository: https://charts.example.com
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    defaultChart: example/my-operator
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    defaultVersion: v1.0.0
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    defaultNamespace: my-operator
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  nodeScheduling:
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    system:
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      nodeSelectorPaths: [operator.nodeSelector]
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      tolerationPaths:   [operator.tolerations]

2. Create recipes/components/my-operator/values.yaml with the chart defaults you want every recipe to start from. Keep this file minimal and widely applicable — cluster-specific tweaks belong in values-<context>.yaml siblings referenced from an overlay.

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# fullnameOverride avoids the aicr-stack- prefix on resource names.
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fullnameOverride: my-operator
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operator:
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  replicas: 1

3. Optional blocks on the registry entry:

• validations: — bundle-time misconfiguration warnings (/aicr/contributor-guide/validators)
• healthCheck.assertFile: — chainsaw conformance assertions (/aicr/contributor-guide/validators)
• storageClassPaths: — where --storage-class is injected
• podScheduling.workload.workloadSelectorPaths — for workload-pod placement
• gkeCriticalPriority, hasSelfRefCRDs — narrow service-specific quirks (see godoc on ComponentConfig for when these apply)

4. Run make bom-docs and commit the regenerated docs/user/container-images.md in the same PR. CLAUDE.md treats this as a hard rule whenever you change registry.yaml, a component’s values.yaml, or any chart version pin. See BOM regeneration.

5. Run make qualify — covers tests, lint, and the recipe-resolution suite that parses every registry entry.

Adding a Kustomize Component

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- name: my-kustomize-app
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  displayName: My Kustomize App
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  valueOverrideKeys:
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    - mykustomize
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  kustomize:
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    defaultSource: https://github.com/example/my-app
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    defaultPath: deploy/production
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    defaultTag: v1.0.0

No recipes/components/<name>/values.yaml is required — Kustomize reads its inputs from the upstream source. Reminder: no --set overrides, and nodeScheduling paths do not apply.

Schema Reference

Authoritative definitions live in pkg/recipe/components.go. One-liner per field:

nodeScheduling.system vs accelerated

This is the field most contributors get wrong on first PR.

• system — paths into chart values for workloads that must land on management / control-plane nodes (e.g., operators, controllers, webhooks). The bundler writes the --system-node-selector and --system-node-toleration values here.
• accelerated — paths into chart values for workloads that must land on GPU nodes (e.g., device-plugin DaemonSets, driver-validation, DCGM exporters). The bundler writes the --accelerated-node-selector and --accelerated-node-toleration values here.

Concrete example from gpu-operator:

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nodeScheduling:
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  system:
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    nodeSelectorPaths:
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      - operator.nodeSelector
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      - node-feature-discovery.master.nodeSelector
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    tolerationPaths:
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      - operator.tolerations
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  accelerated:
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    nodeSelectorPaths:
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      - daemonsets.nodeSelector
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      - node-feature-discovery.worker.nodeSelector
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    tolerationPaths:
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      - daemonsets.tolerations

Wrong column = workloads land on the wrong node class. A DaemonSet placed under system will miss GPU nodes; an operator under accelerated will refuse to schedule on a cluster with tainted GPU nodes only.

valueOverrideKeys

--set <key>:<path>=<value> matches via GetByOverrideKey:

1. The component name is checked first.
2. Each entry in valueOverrideKeys is then checked.

For gpu-operator with valueOverrideKeys: [gpuoperator], both --set gpu-operator:driver.version=... and --set gpuoperator:driver.version=... resolve to the same component. Pick a key that is easier to type (no hyphens) and document it in the displayName-adjacent comments if non-obvious. Override keys are globally unique — ComponentRegistry.Validate rejects duplicates.

deploymentOrder

RecipeResult.DeploymentOrder is derived, not authored. TopologicalSort in pkg/recipe/metadata_store.go orders components by componentRefs[].dependencyRefs declared in the overlay. When no dependencies are declared, the order falls back to the order in which components are listed in the overlay’s componentRefs. Express ordering by declaring dependencyRefs on the dependent component, not by writing a separate deploymentOrder block.

Local Format and Bundle Classification

The bundler emits a uniform NNN-<component>/ layout via pkg/bundler/deployer/localformat. Classification (single source of truth in localformat.classify):

If both helm and kustomize fields are populated, Validate rejects the registry entry — there is no precedence rule because the shape is invalid. manifestFiles are added post-chart; preManifestFiles ship at sync-wave N-1 (e.g., a Namespace with PSS labels the chart pods depend on).

Deployers

AICR ships five output adapters in pkg/bundler/deployer/: helm, helmfile, argocd, argocdhelm, flux. Each calls localformat.Write() and then layers its own orchestration files (deploy.sh, helmfile.yaml, Argo Application CRs, Flux HelmReleases). Components do not need to be deployer-aware — the bundler renders per-deployer from one component definition.

See /aicr/contributor-guide/architecture-overview for the deployer matrix.

BOM Regeneration

docs/user/container-images.md is rendered fresh from each Helm chart’s actual templates by make bom-docs. Run it and commit the regenerated file in the same PR whenever you:

• Add or remove a component
• Bump a chart version (in registry.yaml, an overlay, or a mixin)
• Change a values.yaml in a way that affects which images render (image-repo override, subchart enable/disable, etc.)

make bom-check verifies the committed BOM matches a fresh regen but is opt-in only — not wired into make qualify, make lint, or the merge gate. Do not rely on CI to catch a missed regen.

Boundary: Components Are Metadata

A component entry describes what to deploy and where its values land. Components do not carry apply, wait, uninstall, rollback, or readiness-polling logic — those concerns belong to the deployer that consumes the bundle. If you find yourself writing custom apply code inside the bundler or under pkg/component/, you are on the wrong side of the boundary — see /aicr/contributor-guide/architecture-overview “What AICR Is Not”.

See Also

• /aicr/contributor-guide/recipes-overlays-and-mixins — overlays, mixins, criteria, the recipe data model
• /aicr/contributor-guide/validators — bundle-time component validation checks
• /aicr/contributor-guide/validators — chainsaw health checks and validator runner
• /aicr/contributor-guide/architecture-overview — contributor index and architectural boundary
• integrator/recipe-development.md — end-user recipe authoring
• user/component-catalog.md — end-user component catalog
• pkg/recipe/components.go — ComponentConfig source of truth
• recipes/registry.yaml — live component catalog