Tekton
Tekton is a cloud-native CI/CD framework implemented as a set of Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions and controllers under the tekton.dev API group. Tekton is a CNCF Incubating project. Its primary API surface is Kubernetes-native — Tasks, Pipelines, PipelineRuns, TaskRuns, EventListeners, Triggers, etc. — accessed through the Kubernetes API server (kubectl, client-go, the tkn CLI, and the Tekton Dashboard). Tekton itself is open-source under Apache 2.0; commercial offerings layered on Tekton (Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines, Jenkins X, Google Cloud Build private preview integrations, IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery, Pipelines-as-Code on GitOps platforms) are out of scope of the upstream project.
APIs
Tekton Task CRD
tekton.dev/v1 kind=Task — defines a series of steps that launch specific build or delivery tools, ingest specific inputs (params, workspaces, resources), and produce specific ou...
Tekton TaskRun CRD
tekton.dev/v1 kind=TaskRun — instantiates a Task with specific inputs, workspace bindings, and execution parameters. The TaskRun controller runs the steps as Kubernetes pods and...
Tekton Pipeline CRD
tekton.dev/v1 kind=Pipeline — defines an ordered/parallelized series of Tasks that accomplish a specific build or delivery goal. Pipelines compose Tasks via params, workspaces, ...
Tekton PipelineRun CRD
tekton.dev/v1 kind=PipelineRun — instantiates a Pipeline with specific param values, workspace bindings, service accounts, and timeouts. The PipelineRun controller orchestrates ...
Tekton ClusterTask CRD
tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=ClusterTask — cluster-scoped variant of Task, allowing a single definition to be referenced from any namespace. Marked deprecated in favor of remote reso...
Tekton StepAction CRD
tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=StepAction — reusable, parameterizable step definition that can be referenced from multiple Tasks, enabling tighter sharing than copy-pasting step blocks.
Tekton CustomRun CRD
tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=CustomRun — generic execution resource that custom controllers reconcile, enabling third-party orchestrators to extend Tekton with non-Pod-based executio...
Tekton Resolver Framework
The Tekton Resolution API (tekton.dev/v1alpha1 kind=ResolutionRequest) and built-in resolvers (Git, Hub, Bundles, Cluster, HTTP) fetch Tasks and Pipelines from remote sources at...
Tekton EventListener CRD
triggers.tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=EventListener — runs an HTTP server (Sink) that receives webhooks (e.g., GitHub push events), applies interceptors, and creates Pipeline/TaskRun...
Tekton Trigger CRD
triggers.tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=Trigger — combines TriggerBindings (extracting fields from incoming events) and a TriggerTemplate (instantiating PipelineRuns/TaskRuns) used by ...
Tekton TriggerBinding CRD
triggers.tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=TriggerBinding (and ClusterTriggerBinding) — extracts fields from event payloads and binds them to params used by TriggerTemplates.
Tekton TriggerTemplate CRD
triggers.tekton.dev/v1beta1 kind=TriggerTemplate — declares the PipelineRun/TaskRun resources that should be instantiated when a matching event is received, parameterized by Tri...
Tekton ClusterInterceptor CRD
triggers.tekton.dev/v1alpha1 kind=ClusterInterceptor (and namespace-scoped Interceptor) — pluggable webhook handler that filters, validates, and mutates incoming events before t...
Tekton Results API
Tekton Results provides a long-term store and a gRPC + REST API for completed PipelineRun/TaskRun records and their logs, freeing the Kubernetes etcd from acting as a CI history...
Tekton Chains
Tekton Chains observes completed TaskRuns/PipelineRuns and emits signed in-toto/SLSA provenance attestations to OCI registries, transparency logs (Rekor), or storage backends — ...
Tekton Pipelines as Code
Pipelines as Code lets you store Tekton Pipeline definitions inside the same Git repository as your application code (.tekton/) and runs them on PR/push events from GitHub/GitLa...
Tekton Dashboard API
The Tekton Dashboard exposes a web UI and a thin proxy/HTTP API over the Tekton CRDs and Tekton Results, providing browsing, log streaming, and run management capabilities.
Tekton CLI (tkn)
tkn is the official Tekton command-line tool wrapping the Kubernetes API for Tekton resources — start runs, stream logs, list/describe Tasks and Pipelines, manage triggers, and ...
Tekton Operator CRDs
operator.tekton.dev kinds (TektonConfig, TektonPipeline, TektonTrigger, TektonChain, TektonHub, TektonAddon, TektonDashboard, TektonResult) — the Tekton Operator installs and li...
Tekton Hub API
Tekton Hub is a public catalog of reusable Tasks and Pipelines exposed via REST API — search, fetch, and resolve community-published resources for use via the Hub resolver.
Tekton Catalog
The Tekton Catalog hosts community-curated, versioned Task and Pipeline definitions consumed via the Hub or directly by the Git resolver.