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Release Manifest Guide

The Release Manifest serves as a component-level descriptor of a product’s system. It specifies the underlying components, their specific versions and pull locations, and bundles all this into a single manifest that can be versioned by consumers and leveraged by users to deploy as a unified, single version.

Ultimately, there are two types of release manifests:

Product Release Manifest
Core Platform Release Manifest

Product Release Manifest

NOTE: Elemental is in active development and the Product manifest API may change over time.

IMPORTANT: The Product Release Manifest is intended to be created, maintained and supported by the consumer.

Enables consumers to extend a specific Core Platform release with additional components tailored to their product, bundling everything into a single versioned file called a Product Release Manifest. Users will utilize this manifest to describe a new image base at build time, or upgrade a target during day 2 operations.

Product Release Manifest API

Consumers who wish to create a release manifest for their product should refer to the below API reference for information.

metadata:
  name: "SUSE Product"
  version: "4.2.0"
  creationDate: "2025-07-10"
corePlatform:
  image: "registry.suse.com/uc/release-manifest:0.0.1"
components:
  helm:
    charts:
    - chart: "cert-manager"
      version: "v1.17.2"
      namespace: "cert-manager"
      repository: "jetstack"
      values:
        crds:
          enabled: true
    - chart: "rancher"
      version: "2.11.1"
      namespace: "cattle-system"
      repository: "rancher"
      values:
        replicas: 1
      dependsOn:
      - "cert-manager"
      images:
      - name: "rancher"
        image: "registry.rancher.com/rancher/rancher:v2.11.1"
    repositories:
    - name: "rancher"
      url: "https://releases.rancher.com/server-charts/stable"
    - name: "jetstack"
      url: "https://charts.jetstack.io"

metadata - Optional; General information about the product version that this manifest describes.
- name - Required; Name of the product that this manifest describes.
- version - Required; Version of the product release that this manifest describes.
- creationDate - Optional; Defines the release date for the specified version.
corePlatform - Required; Defines the Core Platform release version that this product wishes to be based upon and extend.
- image - Required; Container image pointing to the desired Core Platform release manifest.
components - Optional; Components with which to extend the Core Platform.
- helm - Optional; Defines Helm components with which to extend the Core Platform.
  - charts - Required; Defines a list of Helm charts to be deployed alongside any Core Platform defined Helm charts.
    - chart - Required; Name of the Helm chart, as seen in the repository.
    - version - Required; Version of the Helm chart, as seen in the repository.
    - repository - Optional if running an OCI chart; Name of the source repository that this chart can be retrieved from.
    - name - Optional; Pretty name of the Helm chart.
    - namespace - Optional; Namespace where the Helm chart will be deployed. Defaults to the default namespace.
    - values - Optional; Custom Helm chart values.
    - dependsOn - Optional; Defines any chart dependencies that this chart has. Any dependency charts will be deployed before the actual chart.
    - images - Optional; Defines images that this chart utilizes.
      - name - Required; Reference name for the specified image.
      - image - Required; Location of the container image that this chart utilizes.
  - repositories - Required; Source repositories for Helm charts.
    - name - Required; Defines the name for this repository. This name doesn’t have to match the name of the actual repository, but must correspond with the repository field of one or more charts.
    - url - Required; Defines the source URL where this repository can be accessed.

Bundle into an OCI image

As mentioned in the release.yaml configuration file, consumers can refer to a Product Release Manifest from an OCI image. This section outlines the minimum steps needed for consumers and/or users to set up said image, while also outlining any caveats and recommendations for the process.

Steps:

Create a product release manifest YAML file by using the Product Release Manifest API reference. Make sure you provide only components relevant to your product and remove the example components from the reference.
Using your build tool of choice, build your image with the created manifest copied inside of it.
- Caveat: To be able to find the release manifest, Elemental’s tooling requires that the copied manifest’s name conforms to the release_manifest*.yaml glob pattern and that it is copied either under the root of the OS (/), or under /etc.
- Recommendation: Since this image will only hold this file, it is advisable for the image to be as small as possible. Consider using base images such as scratch, or similar for your OCI image.

Core Platform Release Manifest

NOTE: Elemental is in active development and the Core Platform manifest API may change over time.

IMPORTANT: This manifest is maintained and provided by the Elemental team and is intended to act as a base for all Product Release Manifests.

Defines the set of components that make up a specific Core Platform release version.

Core Platform Release Manifest API

IMPORTANT: This section is for informational purposes only. Consumers should always refer to a Core Platform release manifest provided by the Elemental team.

# The values shown in this example are for illustrative purposes only
# and should not be used directly
metadata:
  name: "SUSE Core Platform"
  version: "0.0.2"
  creationDate: "2025-07-14"
components:
  operatingSystem:
    image:
      base: "registry.suse.com/uc/uc-base-os-kernel-default:0.0.1"
      iso: "registry.suse.com/uc/uc-base-kernel-default-iso:0.0.1"
  systemd:
    extensions:
    - name: rke2
      image: registry.suse.com/uc/rke2:1.34_6.3-2.20
      required: false
  helm:
    charts:
    - name: "MetalLB"
      chart: "metallb"
      version: "0.15.0"
      namespace: "metallb-system"
      repository: "metallb-repo"
    repositories:
    - name: "metallb-repo"
      url: "https://metallb.github.io/metallb"

The manifest’s structure is similar to that of the Product Release Manifest, with the key difference being the inclusion of components unique to the Core Platform (e.g. operatingSystem and kubernetes).

This reference focuses only on the unique to the Core Platform component APIs. Any components not mentioned here share the same description as those in the Product Release Manifest.

components - Components described by the Core Platform release manifest.
- operatingSystem - Operating system related components.
  - image - Location to different operating system container images.
    - base - Location to the base container image from which all other images defined here are built.
    - iso - Location to the installer media ISO that is used during the customization process.
- systemd - Systemd related components.
  - extensions - List of systemd extension images.
    - name - Name by which the extension can be identified and possibly later enabled from the product release reference.
    - image - Location to the extension image itself.
    - required - Whether this extension should be included by default or not. If omitted defaults to false.

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