GitOps the Hard Way, with Argo CD

Letting the API Server Compute the Merge

The ServerSideApply option moves the merge work from the Argo CD client to the Kubernetes API server.

By default Argo CD manages resources client-side, the equivalent of kubectl apply, which records intent in the kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration annotation. Setting ServerSideApply=true switches to kubectl apply --server-side, where the merge is computed by the API server through managed fields. This avoids the annotation entirely, which matters for resources whose spec is too large to fit in it, and gives more accurate diffs and merges. See the Kubernetes server-side apply docs.

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: todo-app
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  destination:
    namespace: default
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc