sim/helm/sim

Sim Helm Chart

Deploy Sim — the open-source AI workspace where teams build, deploy, and manage AI agents — on Kubernetes.

• Chart version: see Chart.yaml
• App version: tracks the upstream Sim release
• Kubernetes: 1.25+
• License: Apache-2.0

---

TL;DR

# Generate required secrets
export BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
export ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
export INTERNAL_API_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
export CRON_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
export POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 24 | tr -d '/+=')

# Install from this repository
helm install sim ./helm/sim \
  --namespace sim --create-namespace \
  --set app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET="$BETTER_AUTH_SECRET" \
  --set app.env.ENCRYPTION_KEY="$ENCRYPTION_KEY" \
  --set app.env.INTERNAL_API_SECRET="$INTERNAL_API_SECRET" \
  --set app.env.CRON_SECRET="$CRON_SECRET" \
  --set postgresql.auth.password="$POSTGRES_PASSWORD"

After install, follow the on-screen NOTES.txt to reach the app.

---

Introduction

This chart deploys the Sim platform on a Kubernetes cluster using the Helm package manager. A default install includes:

• app — the Sim Next.js web application (Deployment).
• realtime — the WebSocket service for live workflow updates (Deployment).
• postgresql — an in-cluster pgvector/pgvector Postgres (StatefulSet, with a headless Service for stable per-pod DNS).
• migrations — a Job that applies database migrations on install/upgrade.
• cronjobs — scheduled jobs for workflow schedule execution, inbox/calendar/drive polling (Gmail, Outlook, Calendar, Drive, Sheets, IMAP, RSS), workspace event polling, subscription renewal, data drains, and connector syncs.
• serviceaccount — a dedicated ServiceAccount with automountServiceAccountToken: false.

Optional components (off by default):

• copilot — the Sim Copilot service plus its own Postgres StatefulSet.
• ollama — local LLM inference, with optional NVIDIA GPU support.
• pii — Presidio PII redaction service (analyzer + anonymizer) for the Guardrails PII block and log redaction. See PII redaction.
• telemetry — OpenTelemetry Collector wired to Jaeger / Prometheus / OTLP backends.
• ingress — NGINX-style Ingress for the app and realtime services.
• networkPolicy — east-west and egress isolation (blocks cloud metadata endpoints by default).
• hpa — HorizontalPodAutoscaler for app and realtime.
• podDisruptionBudget — auto-activates when replicaCount > 1.
• servicemonitor — Prometheus Operator integration.

---

Prerequisites

Requirement	Version / Notes
Kubernetes	1.25+ (Chart.yaml enforces kubeVersion: ">=1.25.0-0")
Helm	3.8+
StorageClass	A default StorageClass that supports ReadWriteOnce PVCs (for Postgres, Ollama). Set global.storageClass to pick a non-default class.
Ingress controller	Only if ingress.enabled=true. The chart's defaults assume nginx.
cert-manager	Only if you want auto-issued TLS certificates. See cert-manager docs.
metrics-server	Only if autoscaling.enabled=true (HPA needs metrics).
External Secrets Operator	Only if externalSecrets.enabled=true. See ESO docs.
Prometheus Operator	Only if monitoring.serviceMonitor.enabled=true.
Namespace PSS labels	Recommended: pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=restricted. The chart's pod and container security contexts are PSS-restricted by default.

---

Generate required secrets

Sim will not start without these. Generate them once and feed them via --set, an existing Kubernetes Secret, or External Secrets Operator.

# Application secrets (32 bytes hex each)
openssl rand -hex 32   # BETTER_AUTH_SECRET    - signs auth JWTs
openssl rand -hex 32   # ENCRYPTION_KEY        - encrypts sensitive env vars
openssl rand -hex 32   # INTERNAL_API_SECRET   - service-to-service auth
openssl rand -hex 32   # CRON_SECRET           - required if cronjobs.enabled (default true)
openssl rand -hex 32   # API_ENCRYPTION_KEY    - optional; encrypts user API keys at rest

# Postgres password
openssl rand -base64 24 | tr -d '/+='

If you set app.secrets.existingSecret.enabled=true and point at a pre-created Secret, you do not also pass these via --set — pick one path.

---

Installing the chart

From this repository

helm install sim ./helm/sim \
  --namespace sim --create-namespace \
  --set app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET="$BETTER_AUTH_SECRET" \
  --set app.env.ENCRYPTION_KEY="$ENCRYPTION_KEY" \
  --set app.env.INTERNAL_API_SECRET="$INTERNAL_API_SECRET" \
  --set app.env.CRON_SECRET="$CRON_SECRET" \
  --set postgresql.auth.password="$POSTGRES_PASSWORD"

With a values file

helm install sim ./helm/sim \
  --namespace sim --create-namespace \
  --values my-values.yaml

Run helm template ./helm/sim --values my-values.yaml | less first to see what will be applied.

Validate the install

helm install sim ./helm/sim --dry-run --debug \
  --values my-values.yaml \
  --set app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 16) \
  --set app.env.ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 16) \
  --set app.env.INTERNAL_API_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 16) \
  --set app.env.CRON_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 16) \
  --set postgresql.auth.password=$(openssl rand -base64 12 | tr -d '/+=')

---

Upgrading

helm upgrade sim ./helm/sim --namespace sim --values my-values.yaml

---

Uninstalling

helm uninstall sim --namespace sim

PVCs are not deleted by helm uninstall. If you want to wipe data too:

# WARNING: this destroys all Postgres, Ollama, and shared-storage data.
kubectl delete pvc --namespace sim \
  -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=sim

# Or list and delete by name
kubectl get pvc --namespace sim
kubectl delete pvc <pvc-name> --namespace sim

# Then delete the namespace if you're done with it
kubectl delete namespace sim

---

Examples

Pre-built values files for common scenarios live in helm/sim/examples/. Each file has a header explaining when to use it and any prerequisites.

File	When to use
values-development.yaml	Local dev / kind / minikube. Minimal resources, no TLS.
values-production.yaml	Generic production: HA, network policy, autoscaling, monitoring.
values-aws.yaml	EKS — EBS GP3 storage, ALB ingress, IRSA-friendly.
values-gcp.yaml	GKE — Persistent Disk storage, GCP managed certs, Workload Identity.
values-azure.yaml	AKS — managed-csi storage, NGINX ingress, GPU node pools.
values-external-db.yaml	Production with a managed Postgres (RDS, Cloud SQL, Azure DB).
values-external-secrets.yaml	Sync secrets from Vault / AWS SM / Azure KV / GCP SM via External Secrets Operator.
values-existing-secret.yaml	GitOps / Sealed Secrets / SOPS — reference pre-created Kubernetes Secrets.
values-copilot.yaml	Enables the Copilot service + its Postgres StatefulSet.
values-whitelabeled.yaml	Custom branding (logo, name, support links).

Use one with:

helm install sim ./helm/sim \
  --namespace sim --create-namespace \
  --values ./helm/sim/examples/values-production.yaml \
  --set app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET="$BETTER_AUTH_SECRET" \
  --set app.env.ENCRYPTION_KEY="$ENCRYPTION_KEY" \
  --set app.env.INTERNAL_API_SECRET="$INTERNAL_API_SECRET" \
  --set postgresql.auth.password="$POSTGRES_PASSWORD"

---

Parameters

This chart is intentionally configurable. Rather than maintain a hand-curated parameter table (which would drift), read the canonical sources:

# Print all values with comments and defaults
helm show values ./helm/sim

# Print the JSON Schema (used by `helm install` to validate your values)
cat ./helm/sim/values.schema.json

values.yaml is heavily commented; each top-level section explains what it controls and which sub-keys are required vs optional. For per-cloud examples and idiomatic overrides, see examples/.

---

Production checklist

Before installing in production, confirm each of the following:

• High availability — scale app.replicaCount > 1. The chart auto-creates a PodDisruptionBudget with minAvailable: 1. Set podDisruptionBudget.maxUnavailable: "25%" for a more permissive policy or minAvailable: "50%" for a stricter one.
• Pinned images — override image.tag (or image.digest) with an explicit version. Do not rely on the chart's default tag in production.
• Secrets management — provide secrets via External Secrets Operator (ESO) or pre-created Kubernetes Secrets. Never commit secrets to values.yaml.
• TLS / Ingress — set the cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer annotation on the ingress and tune proxy-body-size / proxy-read-timeout for your workload. See commented examples in values.yaml.
• Network policy egress — review networkPolicy.egressExceptCidrs. Defaults block cloud metadata endpoints (169.254.169.254/32, 169.254.170.2/32); add your cluster's API server CIDR for stronger isolation. Custom egress rules go in networkPolicy.egress (a list).
• Network policy ingress — networkPolicy.ingressFrom defaults to [{}] (an empty peer selector), which allows ingress traffic from any pod in the cluster, not just your ingress controller. This is a deliberate simple default, not a locked-down one. On a shared or multi-tenant cluster, scope it down, e.g. to the ingress-nginx namespace:

  networkPolicy:
    ingressFrom:
      - namespaceSelector:
          matchLabels:
            kubernetes.io/metadata.name: ingress-nginx
  

• Namespace hardening — label the install namespace with Pod Security Standards restricted enforcement (pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=restricted). All workloads set runAsNonRoot, drop all Linux capabilities, disable privilege escalation, and set seccompProfile: RuntimeDefault — the four controls the Restricted profile requires. readOnlyRootFilesystem is intentionally not defaulted anywhere (Postgres/Ollama genuinely need a writable root; the stateless services — realtime, pii, copilot — could tolerate it but aren't pre-wired with a /tmp emptyDir). If your policy requires it, set <component>.securityContext.readOnlyRootFilesystem: true and mount an emptyDir at /tmp yourself via extraVolumes/extraVolumeMounts.
• Env validation — keys under app.env, realtime.env, and copilot.env are passed through to the application and validated at startup. The JSON Schema intentionally does not enforce additionalProperties: false (would break custom user envs), so typos like OPENA_API_KEY (instead of OPENAI_API_KEY) surface as missing-key errors at runtime, not at helm install time. Review your env block carefully.
• Set public URLs — app.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL and app.env.BETTER_AUTH_URL must match your public origin (e.g. https://sim.example.com). Leaving them as localhost breaks sign-in.

---

Secrets

The chart supports three ways to provide secrets, in increasing order of production-readiness:

1. Inline --set (dev / dry-run only)

helm install sim ./helm/sim --set app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=...

Discouraged for production — values land in helm get values output.

2. Pre-existing Kubernetes Secret

Create the Secret first, then reference it:

kubectl create secret generic sim-app-secrets --namespace sim \
  --from-literal=BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  --from-literal=ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  --from-literal=INTERNAL_API_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  --from-literal=CRON_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)

kubectl create secret generic sim-postgres-secret --namespace sim \
  --from-literal=POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 24 | tr -d '/+=')

app:
  secrets:
    existingSecret:
      enabled: true
      name: sim-app-secrets

postgresql:
  auth:
    existingSecret:
      enabled: true
      name: sim-postgres-secret
      passwordKey: POSTGRES_PASSWORD

See examples/values-existing-secret.yaml.

3. External Secrets Operator (recommended)

Sync from Azure Key Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, or GCP Secret Manager. Install ESO once, create a ClusterSecretStore, then:

externalSecrets:
  enabled: true
  refreshInterval: 1h
  secretStoreRef:
    name: my-secret-store
    kind: ClusterSecretStore
  remoteRefs:
    app:
      BETTER_AUTH_SECRET: sim/app/better-auth-secret
      ENCRYPTION_KEY: sim/app/encryption-key
      INTERNAL_API_SECRET: sim/app/internal-api-secret
    postgresql:
      password: sim/postgresql/password
    # Only needed when copilot.enabled=true and copilot.server.secret.create=true.
    # Every non-empty copilot.server.env key must have a matching entry here —
    # template rendering fails with a clear message naming the missing key otherwise.
    copilot:
      AGENT_API_DB_ENCRYPTION_KEY: sim/copilot/agent-api-db-encryption-key
      INTERNAL_API_SECRET: sim/copilot/internal-api-secret
      LICENSE_KEY: sim/copilot/license-key
      SIM_BASE_URL: sim/copilot/sim-base-url
      SIM_AGENT_API_KEY: sim/copilot/sim-agent-api-key
      REDIS_URL: sim/copilot/redis-url
      OPENAI_API_KEY_1: sim/copilot/openai-api-key

See examples/values-external-secrets.yaml.

---

Persistence

Postgres, Ollama, and any configured sharedStorage.volumes[] use PersistentVolumeClaims. PVCs survive helm uninstall — see Uninstalling for full cleanup.

Component	Default size	Access mode	Storage class
postgresql	10Gi	ReadWriteOnce	global.storageClass
copilot.postgresql	10Gi	ReadWriteOnce	global.storageClass
ollama	100Gi	ReadWriteOnce	global.storageClass
sharedStorage.volumes[]	user-defined	ReadWriteMany recommended	sharedStorage.storageClass

For production, use a StorageClass with reclaimPolicy: Retain on database volumes.

---

Security

The chart applies Pod Security Standards restricted defaults to every workload:

• runAsNonRoot: true
• allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
• capabilities.drop: [ALL]
• seccompProfile.type: RuntimeDefault

User-supplied securityContext values are merged with the defaults — your values win, but you don't have to repeat the defaults.

Other security features:

• automountServiceAccountToken: false on the ServiceAccount and every pod.
• Every value in app.env and realtime.env is written to a chart-managed Secret and mounted via envFrom: secretRef — no values are inlined on the container spec. This eliminates a sensitivity classifier (no static list of "secret" keys to maintain) and ensures new provider keys can never accidentally leak into pod manifests. Two categories are inlined on the container instead: chart-computed values (DATABASE_URL, SOCKET_SERVER_URL, OLLAMA_URL, PII_URL) and operational defaults under app.envDefaults / realtime.envDefaults (rate limits, timeouts, IVM tunables, feature-flag defaults, branding defaults, http://localhost:3000 URL fallbacks). Operational defaults are non-sensitive by design — moving them out of app.env keeps the Secret small and means External Secrets Operator users only have to map the keys they actually set, not every chart default. A value placed in app.env always wins over the same key in app.envDefaults (the template skips the inline default when an override exists).
• Optional networkPolicy.enabled=true enforces east-west isolation and blocks cloud metadata endpoints in egress.

---

Autoscaling

autoscaling:
  enabled: true
  minReplicas: 2
  maxReplicas: 20
  targetCPUUtilizationPercentage: 70
  targetMemoryUtilizationPercentage: 80

When autoscaling.enabled=true, the chart omits spec.replicas from the Deployment so the HPA owns replica count. Requires metrics-server in the cluster.

---

Monitoring

monitoring:
  serviceMonitor:
    enabled: true
    interval: 30s

Requires the Prometheus Operator CRDs. Scrapes /metrics on the app and realtime services.

---

PII redaction

Sim can redact personally identifiable information using a Presidio service (analyzer + anonymizer combined into one image listening on port 5001). Enable it with:

pii:
  enabled: true

When enabled, the chart deploys it as a standalone <release>-pii Deployment + Service and auto-wires PII_URL on the app to the in-cluster service. The service bundles five large spaCy models (en/es/it/pl/fi, ~2.2GB), so the first start takes ~3 minutes while models load — the startupProbe allows for this. Size the pii.resources for at least ~4Gi memory.

This alone powers the Guardrails PII block and on-demand masking. To additionally turn on automatic log redaction (the org/workspace data-retention scrub), you must:

app:
  env:
    PII_REDACTION: "true"
    # The log-redaction path calls the app's own /api/guardrails/mask-batch,
    # which must be reachable from inside the cluster. Set this to the in-cluster
    # app Service URL (NOT the public ingress, which usually isn't hairpin-reachable).
    INTERNAL_API_BASE_URL: "http://<release>-app.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local:3000"

Without a cluster-reachable INTERNAL_API_BASE_URL (it falls back to NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL), the redaction path fails closed — it scrubs affected fields to [REDACTION_FAILED] rather than leaking, but redaction won't actually run.

The PII image is published at ghcr.io/simstudioai/pii (multi-arch). If you mirror images into a private registry, retag it alongside the app/realtime/migrations images.

---

Troubleshooting

Error: execution error at (sim/templates/...): app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET is required for production deployment

You ran helm install without setting required secrets. Generate them and pass with --set:

helm install sim ./helm/sim \
  --set app.env.BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  --set app.env.ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  --set app.env.INTERNAL_API_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  --set postgresql.auth.password=$(openssl rand -base64 24 | tr -d '/+=')

App pods stuck in CrashLoopBackOff

kubectl logs --namespace sim deploy/sim-app --tail 200

Common causes:

• NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL still set to http://localhost:3000 in a clustered deploy → set it to your public origin.
• DATABASE_URL not reachable → check the Postgres pod is running and postgresql.auth.password matches.
• Missing migration → check kubectl logs job/sim-migrations.

Image pull errors (ErrImagePull / ImagePullBackOff)

• You pushed Sim to a private registry but haven't configured pull secrets. Set global.imagePullSecrets and global.imageRegistry.
• You overrode image.tag to a tag that doesn't exist in the registry. helm get values sim and verify.

Postgres pod Pending

kubectl describe pvc --namespace sim

Almost always one of:

• No default StorageClass → set global.storageClass.
• No PV provisioner → install one (e.g. EBS CSI on EKS, local-path-provisioner for dev).
• StorageClass exists but doesn't support ReadWriteOnce → pick another class.

Ingress not routing

kubectl get ingress --namespace sim
kubectl describe ingress --namespace sim

• Ingress controller not installed → install ingress-nginx or similar.
• ingress.className doesn't match your controller → set it to your installed class.
• DNS not pointed at the ingress's external IP / LoadBalancer.

Get logs from each component

kubectl --namespace sim logs -f deployment/sim-app
kubectl --namespace sim logs -f deployment/sim-realtime
kubectl --namespace sim logs -f statefulset/sim-postgresql
kubectl --namespace sim logs job/sim-migrations

---

Support

• Docs: https://docs.sim.ai
• GitHub: https://github.com/simstudioai/sim
• Issues: https://github.com/simstudioai/sim/issues
• Discord: https://discord.gg/Hr4UWYEcTT

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License

Apache-2.0 © Sim. See LICENSE.