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What is a source of truth and why does GitOps use Git for it? What is continuous reconciliation? What tools implement GitOps besides ArgoCD? What is idempotency and why does it matter in GitOps? What are the benefits of GitOps over traditional deployment approaches? How do you perform a rollback in a GitOps workflow? What belongs in Git and what should not in a GitOps setup? How are secrets managed securely in a GitOps workflow? How does GitOps improve security and compliance? How does GitOps enable auditability and compliance evidence?
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What is configuration drift and how does GitOps handle it?

Intermediate

Answer

Drift is when the live cluster state diverges from the declared state in Git—e.g., someone manually edits a deployment. GitOps detects drift by continuously comparing live vs desired, marks the app OutOfSync, and can auto-heal by reapplying Git's state, restoring the intended configuration and preventing untracked changes.
spec:
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      selfHeal: true   # revert manual drift back to Git state
Real-world example An engineer manually scales a deployment; ArgoCD flags OutOfSync and, with selfHeal on, reverts it to the Git-defined replica count.

Common follow-ups: What is selfHeal? | How is drift surfaced to users?

Sync & Health Applications GitOps Principles
All 28 GitOps Principles questions