Setting Up Tekton Pipelines for Kubernetes-Native CI/CD

Why Tekton?

In modern cloud environments, traditional CI/CD tools can introduce complexity and infrastructure overhead. Tekton, a Kubernetes-native CI/CD framework, provides:

  • Declarative Pipelines with Kubernetes CRDs
  • Event-Driven Automation through triggers
  • Seamless GitHub & DockerHub Integration
  • Scalability & Portability across Kubernetes clusters

With Tekton, CI/CD becomes a native Kubernetes workload, reducing external dependencies and enhancing automation.

Real-World Use Case

Imagine a microservices-based application where developers frequently push updates to GitHub. A robust pipeline is required to:

  • Detect changes in the repository
  • Build & test the application
  • Push the container image to a registry
  • Deploy the latest version to Kubernetes automatically

Tekton enables this entire process within Kubernetes—without relying on external CI/CD systems.

Step 1: Install Tekton in Kubernetes

1.1 Install Tekton Pipelines

kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/pipeline/latest/release.yaml

1.2 Install Tekton Triggers

kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/triggers/latest/release.yaml

1.3 Verify Installation

kubectl get pods -n tekton-pipelines

Step 2: Define Tekton Pipeline Components

2.1 Create a Tekton Task (task-build.yaml)

This task clones a GitHub repository and builds a container image using Kaniko.

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
  name: build-task
spec:
  steps:
    - name: clone-repo
      image: alpine/git
      script: |
        #!/bin/sh
        git clone https://github.com/ArvindRaja45/rep.git /workspace/source
    - name: build-image
      image: gcr.io/kaniko-project/executor:latest
      args:
        - "--context=/workspace/source"
        - "--destination=myrepo/my-app:latest"
Click Here to Copy YAML

2.2 Apply the Task

kubectl apply -f task-build.yaml

Step 3: Define the Pipeline (pipeline.yaml)

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Pipeline
metadata:
  name: ci-pipeline
spec:
  tasks:
    - name: build
      taskRef:
        name: build-task
Click Here to Copy YAML 
kubectl apply -f pipeline.yaml

Step 4: Configure PipelineRun (pipelinerun.yaml)

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: PipelineRun
metadata:
  name: ci-pipeline-run
spec:
  pipelineRef:
    name: ci-pipeline
Click Here to Copy YAML 
kubectl apply -f pipelinerun.yaml

Step 5: Automate Triggering with Tekton Triggers

5.1 Define an EventListener

apiVersion: triggers.tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: EventListener
metadata:
  name: github-listener
spec:
  serviceAccountName: tekton-triggers-sa
  triggers:
    - name: github-push
      bindings:
        - ref: github-trigger-binding
      template:
        ref: github-trigger-template
Click Here to Copy YAML 
kubectl apply -f eventlistener.yaml

5.2 Expose the Listener

kubectl port-forward service/el-github-listener 8080:8080 -n tekton-pipelines

Step 6: Connect to GitHub Webhooks

  • Go to GitHub → Repository → Settings → Webhooks
  • Add http://EXTERNAL_IP:8080
  • Select application/json and push event

Step 7: Monitor the Pipeline Execution

tkn pipeline list
tkn pipelinerun list
tkn pipelinerun describe ci-pipeline-run

Key Takeaways

  • Kubernetes-native automation simplifies CI/CD workflows
  • Event-driven pipelines improve efficiency and response time
  • GitOps integration ensures seamless deployment processes
  • Scalability—Tekton adapts to both small and large-scale applications

Conclusion

Now you have a fully Kubernetes-native CI/CD pipeline using Tekton, with automated GitHub-triggered builds and deployments.

Want to go deeper? Let’s explore multi-stage pipelines, security scans, and GitOps integrations! Drop a comment👇

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