Tekton Pipelines is a cloud-native CI/CD orchestration project that provides Kubernetes-style resources for declaring and executing pipelines. Written in Go, the project enables users to define pipelines as declarative Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions, making it a native extension of Kubernetes clusters rather than an external system. The project is maintained under the Continuous Delivery Foundation and has established itself as a significant component in the Kubernetes-native DevOps ecosystem.
The core design philosophy centers on three key principles. First, Tekton Pipelines are cloud-native, running directly on Kubernetes clusters and using containers as fundamental building blocks. Second, they are decoupled, allowing a single pipeline definition to deploy across different Kubernetes clusters while individual tasks can be executed in isolation and resources like git repositories can be swapped between runs. Third, they are typed, meaning resource implementations can be substituted without changing pipeline definitions, such as choosing between kaniko and buildkit for image building.
The project maintains strict Kubernetes version compatibility requirements that have evolved over time. Recent releases require increasingly modern Kubernetes versions, with the v0.61.x release requiring Kubernetes 1.28 or later. This versioning strategy reflects the project's commitment to leveraging modern Kubernetes features while maintaining a clear upgrade path for users.
The project provides comprehensive migration paths for users upgrading between API versions. Documentation covers migration from v1beta1 to v1, which involved updates to several CRDs including ClusterTask and Pipeline Resources fields, as well as earlier migration from v1alpha1 to v1beta1. This structured approach to API evolution demonstrates the project's commitment to backward compatibility while allowing necessary improvements.
Documentation and getting started resources are extensive, with installation guides, tutorials, examples, and a detailed roadmap available. The project explicitly welcomes contributions through clearly documented processes in CONTRIBUTING.md and DEVELOPMENT.md, with designated good first issues and help wanted issues to guide new contributors. The API compatibility policy and deprecations table provide transparency about stability guarantees and planned removals.
