GitOps transition checklist

1. Inventory existing deployment scripts, manual interventions, and environments; rank services by migration complexity.
2. Agree on repository structure (single repo vs. environment repos) and document ownership, promotion flow, and naming conventions.
3. Verify manifest tooling (Helm, Kustomize, Terraform) and secret-management approach; close gaps before migration.
4. Install reconciler (ArgoCD/Flux) with SSO, RBAC, audit logging, and observability exporters enabled.
5. Convert first service to declarative manifests, validating parity in lower environments before touching production.
6. Configure drift detection alerts, sync policies, and notification routes for each application.
7. Train product teams on Git-based promotion, review requirements, and incident response runbooks.
8. Run pilot deploys end-to-end, capturing metrics (deployment frequency, rollbacks, errors) and qualitative feedback.
9. Decommission legacy scripts for migrated services; restrict manual access paths that bypass GitOps.
10. Review and iterate on the process with stakeholders before scaling to additional services.

Prerequisites

• Platform team capacity and executive support for multi-sprint migration.
• Observability stack able to ingest reconciler metrics and events.

Pitfalls

• Leaving manual kubectl access that undermines drift control.
• Migrating high-risk workloads before pilots validate process.
• Failing to document rollback procedures for reconcilers.

Want help crafting your GitOps migration plan? Contact us via /contact.