Tekton — Cloud-Native CI/CD Pipeline Framework for Kubernetes

Tekton: Cloud-Native CI/CD Pipelines

Tekton is an open source framework for creating CI/CD systems on Kubernetes. It provides a set of Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) that let you define and run pipelines natively on the cluster. Tekton is vendor-neutral, highly customizable, and a CNCF incubating project backed by Google, Red Hat, IBM, and others.

Key Features

• Kubernetes-native CRDs: Pipelines, Tasks, and PipelineRuns are standard Kubernetes resources managed with kubectl
• Reusable Tasks: Build a library of parameterized, composable tasks that can be shared across pipelines and teams
• Tekton Hub: Community catalog of pre-built tasks for building, testing, scanning, and deploying applications
• Parallel execution: Run tasks concurrently within a pipeline to reduce build times
• Results and workspaces: Pass outputs between tasks and share persistent storage within a pipeline run
• Triggers: Automatically start pipelines from webhook events (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket push/PR events)
• Tekton Chains: Supply chain security — sign task results and pipeline runs for SLSA compliance
• Dashboard: Web-based UI for viewing and managing pipeline runs across namespaces

Use Cases

• Build pipelines: Compile, test, and containerize applications using cluster-local resources
• GitOps CI loops: Trigger pipelines on Git events, build images, push to registry, then update manifests for ArgoCD or Flux
• Multi-stage delivery: Chain build, test, security scan, and deploy stages with conditional logic and approvals
• Supply chain security: Sign images and provenance attestations with Tekton Chains for SLSA Level 3 compliance
• Platform CI templates: Define standardized pipeline templates that development teams use as self-service building blocks

Quick Start

Install Tekton Pipelines and create your first pipeline:

# Install Tekton Pipelines
kubectl apply -f https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/pipeline/latest/release.yaml

# Install Tekton Dashboard (optional)
kubectl apply -f https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/release.yaml

# Install Tekton CLI (tkn)
brew install tektoncd-cli

Define a Task that builds and pushes a Docker image:

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1
kind: Task
metadata:
  name: build-and-push
spec:
  params:
    - name: IMAGE
      type: string
    - name: CONTEXT
      type: string
      default: "."
  workspaces:
    - name: source
  steps:
    - name: build
      image: gcr.io/kaniko-project/executor:latest
      command:
        - /kaniko/executor
      args:
        - --context=$(workspaces.source.path)/$(params.CONTEXT)
        - --destination=$(params.IMAGE)

Define and run a Pipeline:

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1
kind: Pipeline
metadata:
  name: build-deploy
spec:
  params:
    - name: repo-url
    - name: image-name
  workspaces:
    - name: shared-data
  tasks:
    - name: fetch-source
      taskRef:
        name: git-clone
      workspaces:
        - name: output
          workspace: shared-data
      params:
        - name: url
          value: $(params.repo-url)
    - name: build-push
      runAfter: ["fetch-source"]
      taskRef:
        name: build-and-push
      workspaces:
        - name: source
          workspace: shared-data
      params:
        - name: IMAGE
          value: $(params.image-name)
---
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1
kind: PipelineRun
metadata:
  name: build-deploy-run-1
spec:
  pipelineRef:
    name: build-deploy
  params:
    - name: repo-url
      value: https://github.com/your-org/my-app
    - name: image-name
      value: registry.example.com/my-app:latest
  workspaces:
    - name: shared-data
      volumeClaimTemplate:
        spec:
          accessModes: [ReadWriteOnce]
          resources:
            requests:
              storage: 1Gi

Comparison with Alternatives

Feature	Tekton	GitHub Actions	Jenkins
Runs on	Kubernetes cluster	GitHub cloud	Self-hosted
Kubernetes-native	Yes	Via actions	Via plugins
Vendor lock-in	None	GitHub	None
Reusability	Tasks + Hub	Actions marketplace	Shared libraries
Learning curve	High	Low	Medium
Supply chain security	Chains (SLSA)	Sigstore actions	Limited

vs GitHub Actions: GitHub Actions is easier to start with and has a massive actions marketplace, but runs on GitHub’s infrastructure. Tekton runs inside your own cluster for full control, air-gapped support, and no egress costs for large builds.

vs Jenkins: Jenkins has a massive plugin ecosystem and years of community knowledge, but its architecture predates Kubernetes and can be complex to scale. Tekton is built for cloud-native from the ground up with better scalability and Kubernetes integration.

Tekton is the right choice for platform teams that need vendor-neutral, Kubernetes-native CI/CD pipelines with strong reusability and supply chain security requirements.