hi @ancient-wolf-19325 I am deploying flyte via the core helm chart: flyteorg/flyte-core, I want to have a specific env var in all of my task’s pods that will spinup during workflow execution and for that I want to utilise PodTemplating. In my tasks I only want to define the pod_template_name like this:

@task(
    pod_template_name="a_pod_template",
)
def t1() -> int:
    ...

show me an example implementation on how can I achieve that and what values should I use in my helm chart

To inject a specific environment variable into all task pods using PodTemplates, you should: 1. Create a Kubernetes PodTemplate with your desired environment variable. 2. Deploy this PodTemplate to the same namespace as your Flyte project or the Flyte control namespace. 3. Reference the PodTemplate in your task using

pod_template_name

. 4. Configure Flyte Helm values to ensure PodTemplates are loaded and available. Example PodTemplate YAML:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PodTemplate
metadata:
  name: a-pod-template
  namespace: flyte  # Or your project-domain namespace
template:
  spec:
    containers:
      - name: default
        env:
          - name: MY_ENV_VAR
            value: "my_value"
        image: docker.io/rwgrim/docker-noop  # Placeholder, will be overridden by Flyte

Apply this with:

kubectl apply -f a-pod-template.yaml

Task Example:

from flytekit import task

@task(pod_template_name="a-pod-template")
def t1() -> int:
    ...

Helm Chart Values: In your

values.yaml

(or via

--set

), ensure the K8s plugin is configured to watch for PodTemplates:

plugins:
  k8s:
    inject-finalizer: true
    # Optionally set a default pod template name if you want all pods to use it by default
    # default-pod-template-name: "a-pod-template"

No further changes are needed if you reference the pod template by name in your task. Note: The PodTemplate must exist in the namespace where the workflow runs, or in the Flyte control namespace as a fallback. The container name in the PodTemplate should be

default

or

primary

as per Flyte conventions. Would you like a step-by-step walkthrough or troubleshooting tips? Sources: - Pod templates | Union.ai Docs - PodTemplate evaluation order - PodTemplate in task decorator discussion 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.

hey @ancient-wolf-19325 can I also declare other task attributes in the pod template like retry, and resource request and limit ?

No, you cannot declare Flyte task attributes like

retries

,

requests

, or

limits

directly in the PodTemplate. PodTemplates are strictly for Kubernetes pod-level configuration (e.g., env vars, volumes, labels, annotations), not Flyte task-level settings. Task attributes such as retries and resource requests/limits must be set in the task decorator or via Flyte's resource configuration mechanisms, not in the PodTemplate itself. According to the Pod templates documentation, PodTemplates configure pod metadata, environment variables, and pod specs, but Flyte-specific task attributes like retries and resources are set separately in the task definition or with

.with_overrides

. This separation is also discussed in GitHub Issue #3123. Would you like more detail on how to set these attributes in your Flyte tasks? Sources: - GitHub Issue #3123: Add PodTemplate configuration to flytekit task definitions - Pod templates documentation 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.

@ancient-wolf-19325 I’ve tried what you suggested above but It is not using such env vars. I am passing the image to be used during task execution as an env var and it is using the default python image. Why could be that ?

The container image for a Flyte task cannot be set via an environment variable in the PodTemplate; Flyte determines the image from the task definition or the Flyte image configuration, not from the PodTemplate. The PodTemplate can set environment variables, but the image field in the PodTemplate is ignored for Flyte tasks—Flyte always overrides it with the image specified in the task or the default image configured for the project. This is confirmed in GitHub Issue #3624, where it is noted that the image in the PodTemplate is not used for task execution. To specify a custom image for your task, set it directly in the task definition using the appropriate Flyte decorator parameter (e.g.,

container_image

or

image

), not via an environment variable or PodTemplate. Would you like more detail on how to set the image for your tasks? Sources: - GitHub Issue #3624: specifying image in PodTemplate does not set the image used for a NotebookTask - Pod templates documentation 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.

how can I configure a default image for the projct @ancient-wolf-19325?

To configure a default image for a Flyte project, set the image in your Flyte configuration file (e.g.,

config.yaml

) under the

images

section, mapping a name (like

default

) to your desired image URI. Flyte will use this image for all tasks in the project unless overridden at the task level. For example:

images:
  default: ghcr.io/myorg/myimage:latest

You can also specify the image in the

TaskEnvironment

or task decorator, but the project-level config is the standard way for a default. See Container images documentation for details. Would you like more detail or an example for a specific Flyte version? Sources: - Container images documentation 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.