In the context of GitOps, what source of truth guides the continuous deployment process?

In GitOps, a Git repository stores a declarative description of the desired state of application and infrastructure resources. Continuous-deployment (CD) agents continually reconcile the running environment against this Git-defined desired state; any divergence triggers an automated correction back to what Git records. Because every intended change must be committed and merged into Git first, the desired state held in Git is the authoritative “single source of truth” guiding all deployments.

B. Dynamic State – Refers to live, runtime conditions that change constantly; it is observed, not authoritative, and therefore not used to drive deployments.
C. Fleeting State – Not a standard GitOps term; conveys temporal conditions, not a declarative specification.
D. Current State – The system’s presently observed configuration; GitOps controllers compare this to the desired state but do not treat it as the source of truth.

1. CNCF GitOps Working Group, “Principles of GitOps,” v1.0.0, Section 1 “Declarative desired system state stored in version control,” ¶2 (2021).

2. Linux Foundation, Course LFS169x “GitOps Fundamentals,” Chapter 2 “Desired State and Git as Source of Truth,” slides 3-5 (2022).

3. Weaveworks, Official Documentation, “What is GitOps?” → “Declarative desired state stored in Git” subsection, lines 4-8 (accessed 2025-12-10).