12mo ago

Tekton Cloud Native CI/CD

Cloud Native CI/CD

I recently got recommended this project, to have a more natively connected CI/CD (I would probably be more interested in the CI part, as I already have argo-cd running) And it seems very interesting, and the development seems okayish active. The only thing that I am curious about (and why I made this post, besides maybe making more people aware that it exists), is how active the Tekton hub (https://hub.tekton.dev/) is.

So, maybe somebody here has some information on that. I am not using Tekton (yet), but I read somewhere in the documentation, that this hub is supposed to be the place to get re-usable components, but seeing the actual activity on there turned me off from the project a little bit, because a lot of things are in version 0.1 and have been last updated 1 or 2 years ago. Maybe that issue only exists, because I am not logged in, but that certainly looks weird.

So, do you have any experience with Tekton? How do you feel about it?

3 comments

I used Tekton for the last two years, and I didn't like it. One of the reasons is the community split around Tekton Hub between versions 3 and 4. Another reason is that it's not very Kubernetes native. While you write YAML, there are a subset of instructions that limit you regarding mundane things you can do on Kubernetes but Tekton doesn't support, such as mounting different PersistentVolumeClaims or setting tasks by platforms or nodes (amd64, arm64, etc).
I was so frustrated that I created my own Kubernetes-native CI/CD solution. Currently in development phases (when it is done, I will publish it here). This one uses real native Kubernetes components (jobs). You create Webhooks that launch Workflows, and Workflows can launch other Workflows or Jobs. You can do anything in a Job with no limitations other than Kubernetes itself. Take a look if you want: https://github.com/jlsalvador/simple-cicd
- Thank you for your insight. And interesting project you got going on there.

I looked at Tekton, but the complexity of doing simple things put me off. I have been running woodpecker which now has Kubernetes support.
Installing the Helm Chart for the Woodpecker agent gives K8s support with no special configuration needed. My needs are simple but I have been really impressed with how easy it has been.