Intake Validation

Where your release is in its life

The bar on the release page shows five steps:

Draft → Ready for review → Under review → Ready to publish → Published

Step	What it means	What to do
Draft	Saved, not submitted	Finish it and submit
Ready for review	Submitted, waiting to start	Wait
Under review	The six checks are running	Watch the review stages
Ready to publish	Approved	Publish it
Published	Live on the App Store	Nothing

A release can also come to rest off that line:

State	What it means	What to do
Pending approval	The checks passed; a reviewer has not decided yet	Wait
Review failed	A check failed	Fix it and submit the same release again
Rejected	A reviewer declined it	Read their reason under Errors and messages, address it, then submit again
Archived	Withdrawn and no longer listed	Nothing

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The six checks inside Under Review

Under review is where the work happens. It expands into six stages, ticked off as each passes.

Check	What it looks for
Metadata Validation	Your release details are complete and the version number is valid
Helm Chart Validation	Your chart is well-formed, it builds, and what it builds is a valid application
Secret Validation	The secrets your chart asks for are actually in your vaults
Images Validation	Your credentials work and every image your chart needs can be downloaded
Test Application Deploy	Your application installs for real and starts up healthy
Armada Review	A person at Armada approves it or turns it down

  Metadata ─▶ Helm Chart ─▶ Secret ─▶ Images ─▶ Test Deploy ─▶ Armada Review
     │            │           │         │           │
     └────────────┴───────────┴─────────┴───────────┘
              any failure here stops the run

The run stops at the first failure

The checks run in order and stop as soon as one fails. The checks after it do not run at all.

So if Helm Chart Validation fails you will see nothing about your images — not because they are fine, but because they were never reached. Fix what failed and the next attempt gets further.

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What each check does

Metadata Validation

Confirms your release details are filled in and that the Bundle version is a valid version number. The chart version is checked separately, in Helm Chart Validation.

Helm Chart Validation

The widest check — it has more ways to fail than any other.

Confirms your chart has Chart.yaml, values.yaml and a templates folder, builds it, and checks the result is valid Kubernetes. It also reads out the images your chart needs — a chart needing none is refused, since there would be nothing to install.

Try this yourself first

This check runs the same tools you can run on your own machine:

helm lint ./mychart
helm template ./mychart > built.yaml
kubectl apply --dry-run=client -f built.yaml
grep -E '^\s*image:' built.yaml       # should list at least one image
grep '^version:' ./mychart/Chart.yaml # must equal the chart version you submit

A chart that gets through all five of those will usually pass this check.

Secret Validation

Checks that each vault your chart names exists and each secret inside it is there. If your chart names more than one vault, all have to resolve — one wrong name fails the check.

This step only looks; it creates nothing.

Images Validation

Confirms your credentials work and that every image your chart needs can be downloaded. All are checked, so one tag that has been deleted, renamed or mistyped fails the check.

Test Application Deploy

Installs your application on a real cluster and waits for it to start. The slowest check — it takes as long as your application takes to boot. A clearly dead deployment ends early rather than waiting it out: a container that keeps restarting, an image that will not download, one that runs out of memory, or one that will not fit.

Armada Review

Someone at Armada approves your release or turns it down. If turned down, their reason appears on the release page against this step — you do not have to ask.

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Following along

Each check reports its own state, separate from the release step above:

Check state	Meaning
Pending	Accepted, not started yet
Running	In progress
Success	Everything passed
Failed	A check failed
Cancelled	You stopped it

A failed check is listed by name under Errors and messages on the release page, with a message explaining what went wrong. Take that message to Troubleshooting intake.

Stopping a run

You can cancel a run while it is going; once finished you cannot. If a run is slow, cancel rather than resubmitting — a second submission of the same version is refused while the first is running.

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Publishing

Publishing is your decision, not the reviewer's — an approved release sits at Ready to publish until you publish it.

Publish release asks where to publish, and asks you to accept the terms.

Publish to	Who can see it
Internal (Private Marketplace)	Only your own Atlas Organization
External (Public Marketplace)	Every Armada customer

You also have to tick I have read and agree, which covers the applicable Armada agreement and any terms it incorporates. Publish stays disabled until you do.

Remove listing takes the listing back down afterwards.