tekton

Tekton is an open-source framework for building continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) systems on Kubernetes. It provides a set of Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) that encode the steps, workflows, and inputs needed to build, test, and deploy software. Tekton is designed to be Kubernetes-native, extensible, and declarative, enabling pipelines to run anywhere a Kubernetes cluster is available.

Tekton is developed under the Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF), part of the Linux Foundation, and aims to be a standard, reusable foundation for cloud-native CI/CD pipelines. Its architecture separates the definition of work from its execution, allowing teams to compose small, reusable units and chain them into broader pipelines.

Core concepts in Tekton include Tasks, TaskRuns, Pipelines, and PipelineRuns. A Task defines a single unit of work, such as a build or test; a TaskRun is an instance of that work. A Pipeline strings together multiple Tasks into a workflow, and a PipelineRun represents a concrete execution of that Pipeline. Tekton also supports parameters, results, and workspaces to pass data between steps, along with conditions and triggers for event-driven execution. Historical concepts such as PipelineResources exist in older catalogs but are often replaced by more flexible inputs, outputs, and workspaces.

Tekton operates via controllers within a Kubernetes cluster that reconcile CRDs and run work in Pods. It can execute tasks in parallel, scale with the cluster, and integrate with external systems through Tekton Triggers, which respond to events such as Git commits. The ecosystem includes a Tekton Dashboard for UI visibility and the Tekton Catalog, which hosts reusable tasks and pipelines.

Tekton is widely used to implement Kubernetes-native CI/CD pipelines, offering interoperability, portability, and a modular approach to automation.