The chart told operators that adding a duplicate env name to an installed
release makes the next upgrade fail in the API server, quoting "The order in
patch list ... doesn't match $setElementOrder list". Measured against helm
3.19.0 and Kubernetes 1.35, it does not fail: the upgrade succeeds, helm prints
"Release has been upgraded", and Kubernetes merges the env list by name, so the
duplicate pair collapses to the chart's own entry and the operator's override is
discarded without a word. At install time the same values behave differently -
both entries reach the pod, the later one wins, and the API server says so with
"hides previous definition of ..., which may be dropped when using apply".
The advice that followed from the old claim survives - such a switch only takes
at install time - but the stated reason was wrong in the dangerous direction. A
reader who expects a loud failure treats a green upgrade as proof the override
took effect, and green is exactly what a silently dropped override looks like.
The text now names the real failure mode and tells the reader to read the value
back off the Deployment. README carries the same correction, because every chart
in this repo offers the same additive env block.
Also records what the earlier measurement left open. With the database scaled
back up the pod returns to Ready on its own after about five seconds, restart
count still 0, so leaving the liveness group untouched costs no manual recovery.
And the limit of that signal belongs next to it: the db indicator validates a
connection, not the schema, so a database that came back empty still put the pod
back to Ready with /actuator/health at 200.
jklein
f761767630