Rollback¶

ArgoCD maintains a history of every sync operation, allowing you to roll back to any previous revision.
Before rolling back, you should disable automated sync to prevent ArgoCD from immediately re-syncing.
The rollback operation redeploys the manifests from a specific Git commit SHA.

What will we learn?¶

How to view application sync history
How to diff between current state and a previous revision
How to rollback to a specific revision
Why automated sync must be disabled before rollback
How to undo a rollback

Prerequisites¶

Complete Lab 004
The guestbook application has at least 2 sync operations in history

01. View Sync History¶

# List all past sync operations (revisions)
argocd app history guestbook

# Sample output:
# ID  DATE                           REVISION
# 0   2024-01-15 10:00:00 +0000 UTC  HEAD (abc1234)
# 1   2024-01-15 11:30:00 +0000 UTC  HEAD (def5678)
# 2   2024-01-15 14:45:00 +0000 UTC  HEAD (ghi9012)

02. Diff Against a Previous Revision¶

# Show what changed between current state and revision ID 1
argocd app diff guestbook --revision 1

# Compare two specific revisions (by Git commit SHA)
# argocd app diff guestbook --from-revision abc1234 --to-revision def5678

03. Disable Automated Sync Before Rollback¶

If automated sync is enabled, ArgoCD will immediately re-sync after rollback:

# Check current sync policy
argocd app get guestbook | grep "Sync Policy"

# Disable automated sync
argocd app set guestbook --sync-policy none

# Verify it is disabled
argocd app get guestbook | grep "Sync Policy"
# Should show: Sync Policy: <none>

04. Perform the Rollback¶

# View history to find the target revision ID
argocd app history guestbook

# Rollback to revision ID 1
argocd app rollback guestbook 1

# Wait for rollback to complete
argocd app wait guestbook --health --timeout 120

# Check the current state
argocd app get guestbook

05. Verify the Rollback¶

# Confirm the deployed resources match the old revision
kubectl get deployment guestbook-ui -n guestbook -o yaml | grep image

# Check the revision in argocd app get output
argocd app get guestbook
# The "Revision" field should now show the old commit SHA

06. Undo the Rollback (Sync to HEAD)¶

# Re-enable automated sync
argocd app set guestbook --sync-policy automated --self-heal

# Sync to latest HEAD
argocd app sync guestbook
argocd app wait guestbook --health --timeout 120
argocd app get guestbook

Practice

07. Hands-on¶

View the sync history of the guestbook application:

??? success “Solution”

argocd app history guestbook

Disable automated sync on the guestbook application then rollback to revision ID 0:

??? success “Solution”

argocd app set guestbook --sync-policy none
argocd app history guestbook
argocd app rollback guestbook 0
argocd app wait guestbook --health --timeout 120
argocd app get guestbook

After rollback, sync back to HEAD and re-enable automated sync:

??? success “Solution”

argocd app sync guestbook
argocd app set guestbook --sync-policy automated --self-heal
argocd app wait guestbook --health --timeout 120

08. Summary¶

argocd app history <app> lists all past syncs with their revision IDs and Git commit SHAs
Always disable automated sync (--sync-policy none) before rollback to prevent immediate re-sync
Rollback deploys the exact manifests from a specific Git commit - it does not modify Git history
argocd app diff --revision <id> lets you preview changes before committing to a rollback
After rollback investigation, restore by syncing to HEAD and re-enabling the desired sync policy