What is an ArgoCD Application and what fields does its manifest require?

An ArgoCD Application is a Kubernetes Custom Resource (CRD) that represents a deployed application managed by ArgoCD. It is the fundamental unit of work in ArgoCD — one Application tracks one source (a Git repo path, Helm chart, or OCI artifact) and deploys it to one destination (a cluster and namespace).

The essential fields in an Application manifest are:

• source: defines repoURL (the Git or Helm repo), targetRevision (branch, tag, or commit SHA), and path (directory within the repo) or chart (for Helm repos).
• destination: specifies server (the cluster API URL; use https://kubernetes.default.svc for in-cluster) and namespace.
• project: the ArgoCD Project this Application belongs to (controls source/destination whitelist and RBAC).

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: my-app
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: default
  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/my-org/my-app
    targetRevision: HEAD
    path: k8s/overlays/production
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: production
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true

Optional but commonly used: syncPolicy (automated sync, prune, selfHeal), ignoreDifferences (fields to exclude from diff), and info (free-form metadata displayed in the UI).

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