Tekton Fundamentals
Tekton is a set of Kubernetes resources for defining and running CI/CD pipelines. You assemble container-based steps into reusable tasks, connect tasks into pipelines, and create runs to execute them on a cluster.
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Don't Panic
Don't Panic - Tekton Fundamentals
Tekton Fundamentals centers on Tekton Pipelines. Tekton turns software delivery work into Kubernetes resources. You describe the work in YAML.
Operate from the project's own resources and APIs. Learn how desired state becomes running state, which status conditions matter, and which dependencies (network, storage, identity, certificates) the control plane assumes.
Upgrades, backups, and credential rotation are part of the product, not optional aftercare. Version skew between clients and servers creates failures that look like application bugs. Pin versions and rehearse rollback.
Convenience features reduce boilerplate and widen blast radius. Enable them when you can observe and reverse the expanded surface. Defaults from quickstarts are starting points, not production policy.
Name owners for upgrades, credentials, and disaster recovery before traffic arrives. Unowned control-plane state becomes an outage with no clear pager. Prefer explicit version pins and tested rollback over floating tags that quietly change behavior between deploys.
Name owners for upgrades, credentials, and disaster recovery before traffic arrives. Unowned control-plane state becomes an outage with no clear pager. Prefer explicit version pins and tested rollback over floating tags that quietly change behavior between deploys.
Name owners for upgrades, credentials, and disaster recovery before traffic arrives. Unowned control-plane state becomes an outage with no clear pager. Prefer explicit version pins and tested rollback over floating tags that quietly change behavior between deploys.
Read the Intro for the mental model. Use the Cheatsheet when you need the resource map. Updates and Upstream track the Tekton Pipelines release line that changes these APIs.
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Sources
- https://tekton.dev/docs/concepts/overview/
Supports
- Tekton as a Kubernetes extension built from Custom Resources
- Intended platform-engineer and developer audiences
- Tekton component map and component responsibilities
- Tasks execute in separate Pods and do not share data by default
- Task, Pipeline, TaskRun, and PipelineRun selection guidance
- https://tekton.dev/docs/concepts/concept-model/
Supports
- Step, Task, Pipeline, TaskRun, and PipelineRun relationships
- Each Step uses a container image
- A Task runs as a Pod and a Pipeline forms a directed acyclic graph
- Manual and Trigger-created Runs
- https://tekton.dev/docs/pipelines/tasks/
Supports
- Task fields, ordered Steps, Parameters, Workspaces, Results, volumes, and sidecars
- Workspaces as volume requirements
- Results as values passed to later Tasks
- Failure behavior when a consumed declared Result is not produced
- https://tekton.dev/docs/pipelines/pipelines/
Supports
- Pipeline graph configuration
- Parameter and Workspace mapping
- Result dependencies, runAfter, when, retries, timeouts, and finally Tasks
- Pipeline Results and Task Result references
- https://tekton.dev/docs/pipelines/pipelineruns/
Supports
- PipelineRun as on-cluster Pipeline execution
- Automatic TaskRun creation
- Parameters, Workspaces, ServiceAccounts, Pod templates, and timeouts
- Resolved Pipeline specification and child execution status
- Cancellation and failure behavior
- https://tekton.dev/docs/getting-started/pipelines/
Supports
- Current tekton.dev v1 Task, Pipeline, and PipelineRun examples
- Creating resources with kubectl
- Reading PipelineRun logs with tkn
- https://tekton.dev/docs/pipelines/auth/
Supports
- Runtime authentication through a Run ServiceAccount
- Supported Git and registry Secret types
- Difference between Step credentials and private Step image pull credentials
- https://tekton.dev/docs/triggers/
Supports
- Event-driven TaskRun and PipelineRun creation
- EventListener, Trigger, TriggerBinding, and TriggerTemplate roles
- https://tekton.dev/docs/chains/
Supports
- Observation of completed TaskRuns and PipelineRuns
- Snapshot conversion, signing, attestation formats, and storage backends
- https://tekton.dev/docs/cli/
Supports
- tkn as the Tekton command-line interface
- https://tekton.dev/docs/installation/
Supports
- Component installation paths and local-cluster guidance
- https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
Supports
- Discovery entry point for curated awesome lists
- https://github.com/cicdops/awesome-ciandcd
Supports
- CI and CD ecosystem discovery
- https://github.com/ramitsurana/awesome-kubernetes
Supports
- Kubernetes delivery-project discovery, including Argo CD
- https://github.com/NotHarshhaa/awesome-devops-cloud
Supports
- Discovery of Tekton-adjacent Argo CD, Trivy, and Harbor projects
- https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
Supports
- Argo CD as declarative GitOps continuous delivery for Kubernetes
- Git desired-state reconciliation and learner documentation
- https://trivy.dev/docs/latest/guide/scanner/vulnerability/
Supports
- Detection of known vulnerabilities in software components
- https://www.trivy.dev/docs/latest/guide/scanner/secret/
Supports
- Secret scanning for images, filesystems, and Git repositories
- https://trivy.dev/docs/dev/guide/scanner/misconfiguration/
Supports
- Misconfiguration checks for infrastructure as code
- https://goharbor.io/docs/2.14.0/
Supports
- Harbor registry installation, configuration, project use, and administration documentation