Getting Started with Tekton: Installation, Core Concepts, and a Sample CI Pipeline

Tekton is a powerful, flexible open‑source cloud‑native CI/CD framework that originated from the Knative build‑pipeline project and now provides a standardized solution for building pipelines on Kubernetes.

Installation : With a running Kubernetes cluster (e.g., v1.16.2), Tekton can be installed by applying the official release YAML:

$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/releases/download/v0.12.0/release.yaml

If the default GCR images are unreachable, an alternative manifest that uses Docker Hub images can be applied:

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cnych/qikqiak.com/master/data/manifests/tekton/release.yaml

After installation, the tekton-pipelines namespace is created; verify the pods are running with kubectl get pods -n tekton-pipelines. Optionally, install the Tekton CLI via Homebrew on macOS:

$ brew tap tektoncd/tools
$ brew install tektoncd/tools/tektoncd-cli

Confirm the CLI installation with tkn version.

Core Concepts : Tekton defines several CRDs:

Task – a template of steps to execute (e.g., compile, build, push).

TaskRun – an actual execution of a Task.

Pipeline – an ordered collection of Tasks and resources.

PipelineRun – an execution of a Pipeline.

PipelineResource – inputs or outputs for a Pipeline, such as a Git repo or a container image.

Example Walkthrough :

1. Create a Task that clones a Go repository and runs go test:

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
  name: test
spec:
  resources:
    inputs:
    - name: repo
      type: git
  steps:
  - name: run-test
    image: golang:1.14-alpine
    workingDir: /workspace/repo
    command: ["go"]
    args: ["test"]

Apply it with kubectl apply -f task-test.yaml.

2. Define a PipelineResource of type git pointing to the demo repository:

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1alpha1
kind: PipelineResource
metadata:
  name: cnych-tekton-example
spec:
  type: git
  params:
  - name: url
    value: https://github.com/cnych/tekton-demo
  - name: revision
    value: master

Apply it with kubectl apply -f pipelineresource.yaml.

3. Create a TaskRun that references the Task and the Git resource:

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: TaskRun
metadata:
  name: testrun
spec:
  taskRef:
    name: test
  resources:
    inputs:
    - name: repo
      resourceRef:
        name: cnych-tekton-example

Apply with kubectl apply -f taskrun.yaml and monitor progress using kubectl get taskrun, kubectl get pods, or kubectl logs. When the pod reaches Completed, the TaskRun shows SUCCEEDED: True and the test output (e.g., PASS) appears in the logs.

Alternatively, the Tekton CLI can start the Task and stream logs in one step:

$ tkn task start test --inputresource repo=cnych-tekton-example --showlog

Summary : The article demonstrates installing Tekton on Kubernetes, defining a Task, PipelineResource, and TaskRun, executing the pipeline, and verifying results via kubectl and the Tekton CLI. The next steps would involve adding a Docker build task, pushing the image to Docker Hub, and chaining tasks into a full pipeline.