skaffold build enforces Helm with 2.17.0

[AndreasBergmeier6176]

After 2.17.0 skaffold build now enforces Helm. It would be preferably to be able to run it without helm.

[mattsanta]

Could you provide more information to reproduce the issue? Logs could also be helpful if you run the command with --verbosity=debug.

I'm able to run a basic local skaffold build without Helm in my environment so there must be some case that's causing this issue.

[AndreasBergmeier6176]

Well we call skaffold build -f skaffold_build.yaml --tag 80116a54bc6a474898dc5f2a8c0f1923a8373b55

which then errors with: creating runner: creating renderer: Helm not found. Please install helm via https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install.

Just before it fails it says:

time="2025-11-14T19:33:00Z" level=debug msg="Running command: [helm version]" subtask=-1 task=DevLoop
time="2025-11-14T19:33:00Z" level=debug msg="Running command: [tput colors]" subtask=-1 task=DevLoop

It may be that the problem got introduced in 2b28072.

Previously a new instance of Helm support was instantiated without testing whether helm was actually present. Now in the new code it explicitly calls helm in New which then enforces a present helm binary as soon as some Helm rendering gets detected.

Whether it makes sense to instantiate Helm support in the first place when calling skaffold build is a different question - but I fear that only instantiating what is necessary might need a wider refactoring.

[AndreasBergmeier6176]

Anyone?