- Overview
- Configuring a
Task
- Code examples
- Debugging
A Task
is a collection of Steps
that you
define and arrange in a specific order of execution as part of your continuous integration flow.
A Task
executes as a Pod on your Kubernetes cluster. A Task
is available within a specific
namespace, while a ClusterTask
is available across the entire cluster.
A Task
declaration includes the following elements:
A Task
definition supports the following fields:
- Required:
apiVersion
- Specifies the API version. For example,tekton.dev/v1beta1
.kind
- Identifies this resource object as aTask
object.metadata
- Specifies metadata that uniquely identifies theTask
resource object. For example, aname
.spec
- Specifies the configuration information for thisTask
resource object.steps
- Specifies one or more container images to run in theTask
.
- Optional:
description
- An informative description of theTask
.params
- Specifies execution parameters for theTask
.resources
- alpha only SpecifiesPipelineResources
needed or created by yourTask
.workspaces
- Specifies paths to volumes required by theTask
.results
- Specifies the names under whichTasks
write execution results.volumes
- Specifies one or more volumes that will be available to theSteps
in theTask
.stepTemplate
- Specifies aContainer
step definition to use as the basis for allSteps
in theTask
.sidecars
- SpecifiesSidecar
containers to run alongside theSteps
in theTask
.
The non-functional example below demonstrates the use of most of the above-mentioned fields:
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
name: example-task-name
spec:
params:
- name: pathToDockerFile
type: string
description: The path to the dockerfile to build
default: /workspace/workspace/Dockerfile
resources:
inputs:
- name: workspace
type: git
outputs:
- name: builtImage
type: image
steps:
- name: ubuntu-example
image: ubuntu
args: ["ubuntu-build-example", "SECRETS-example.md"]
- image: gcr.io/example-builders/build-example
command: ["echo"]
args: ["$(params.pathToDockerFile)"]
- name: dockerfile-pushexample
image: gcr.io/example-builders/push-example
args: ["push", "$(resources.outputs.builtImage.url)"]
volumeMounts:
- name: docker-socket-example
mountPath: /var/run/docker.sock
volumes:
- name: example-volume
emptyDir: {}
A ClusterTask
is a Task
scoped to the entire cluster instead of a single namespace.
A ClusterTask
behaves identically to a Task
and therefore everything in this document
applies to both.
Note: When using a ClusterTask
, you must explicitly set the kind
sub-field in the taskRef
field to ClusterTask
.
If not specified, the kind
sub-field defaults to Task.
Below is an example of a Pipeline declaration that uses a ClusterTask
:
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Pipeline
metadata:
name: demo-pipeline
namespace: default
spec:
tasks:
- name: build-skaffold-web
taskRef:
name: build-push
kind: ClusterTask
params: ....
A Step
is a reference to a container image that executes a specific tool on a
specific input and produces a specific output. To add Steps
to a Task
you
define a steps
field (required) containing a list of desired Steps
. The order in
which the Steps
appear in this list is the order in which they will execute.
The following requirements apply to each container image referenced in a steps
field:
- The container image must abide by the container contract.
- Each container image runs to completion or until the first failure occurs.
- The CPU, memory, and ephemeral storage resource requests will be set
to zero (also known as
BestEffort),
or, if specified, the minimums set through
LimitRanges
in thatNamespace
, if the container image does not have the largest resource request out of all container images in theTask.
This ensures that the Pod that executes theTask
only requests enough resources to run a single container image in theTask
rather than hoard resources for all container images in theTask
at once.
Below is an example of setting the resource requests and limits for a step:
spec:
steps:
- name: step-with-limts
resources:
requests:
memory: 1Gi
cpu: 500m
limits:
memory: 2Gi
cpu: 800m
There are several directories that all Tasks
run by Tekton will treat as special
/workspace
- This directory is where resources and workspaces are mounted. Paths to these are available toTask
authors via variable substitution/tekton
- This directory is used for Tekton specific functionality:/tekton/results
is where results are written to. The path is available toTask
authors via$(results.name.path)
- There are other subfolders which are implementation details of Tekton and users should not rely on their specific behavior as it may change in the future
A step can specify a script
field, which contains the body of a script. That script is
invoked as if it were stored inside the container image, and any args
are passed directly
to it.
Note: If the script
field is present, the step cannot also contain a command
field.
Scripts that do not start with a shebang line will have the following default preamble prepended:
#!/bin/sh
set -xe
You can override this default preamble by prepending a shebang that specifies the desired parser.
This parser must be present within that Step's
container image.
The example below executes a Bash script:
steps:
- image: ubuntu # contains bash
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "Hello from Bash!"
The example below executes a Python script:
steps:
- image: python # contains python
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env python3
print("Hello from Python!")
The example below executes a Node script:
steps:
- image: node # contains node
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env node
console.log("Hello from Node!")
You can execute scripts directly in the workspace:
steps:
- image: ubuntu
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
/workspace/my-script.sh # provided by an input resource
You can also execute scripts within the container image:
steps:
- image: my-image # contains /bin/my-binary
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
/bin/my-binary
A Step
can specify a timeout
field.
If the Step
execution time exceeds the specified timeout, the Step
kills
its running process and any subsequent Steps
in the TaskRun
will not be
executed. The TaskRun
is placed into a Failed
condition. An accompanying log
describing which Step
timed out is written as the Failed
condition's message.
The timeout specification follows the duration format as specified in the Go time package (e.g. 1s or 1ms).
The example Step
below is supposed to sleep for 60 seconds but will be canceled by the specified 5 second timeout.
steps:
- name: sleep-then-timeout
image: ubuntu
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "I am supposed to sleep for 60 seconds!"
sleep 60
timeout: 5s
You can specify parameters, such as compilation flags or artifact names, that you want to supply to the Task
at execution time.
Parameters
are passed to the Task
from its corresponding TaskRun
.
Parameter names:
- Must only contain alphanumeric characters, hyphens (
-
), and underscores (_
). - Must begin with a letter or an underscore (
_
).
For example, fooIs-Bar_
is a valid parameter name, but barIsBa$
or 0banana
are not.
Each declared parameter has a type
field, which can be set to either array
or string
. array
is useful in cases where the number
of compilation flags being supplied to a task varies throughout the Task's
execution. If not specified, the type
field defaults to
string
. When the actual parameter value is supplied, its parsed type is validated against the type
field.
The following example illustrates the use of Parameters
in a Task
. The Task
declares two input parameters named flags
(of type array
) and someURL
(of type string
), and uses them in the steps.args
list. You can expand parameters of type array
inside an existing array using the star operator. In this example, flags
contains the star operator: $(params.flags[*])
.
Note: Input parameter values can be used as variables throughout the Task
by using variable substitution.
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
name: task-with-parameters
spec:
params:
- name: flags
type: array
- name: someURL
type: string
steps:
- name: build
image: my-builder
args: ["build", "$(params.flags[*])", "url=$(params.someURL)"]
The following TaskRun
supplies a dynamic number of strings within the flags
parameter:
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: TaskRun
metadata:
name: run-with-parameters
spec:
taskRef:
name: task-with-parameters
params:
- name: flags
value:
- "--set"
- "arg1=foo"
- "--randomflag"
- "--someotherflag"
- name: someURL
value: "http://google.com"
A Task
definition can specify input and output resources supplied by
a PipelineResources
entity.
Use the input
field to supply your Task
with the context and/or data it needs to execute.
If the output of your Task
is also the input of the next Task
that executes, you must
make that data available to that Task
at /workspace/output/resource_name/
. For example:
resources:
outputs:
name: storage-gcs
type: gcs
steps:
- image: objectuser/run-java-jar #https://hub.docker.com/r/objectuser/run-java-jar/
command: [jar]
args:
["-cvf", "-o", "/workspace/output/storage-gcs/", "projectname.war", "*"]
env:
- name: "FOO"
value: "world"
Note: If the Task
relies on output resource functionality then the
containers in the Task's
steps
field cannot mount anything in the path
/workspace/output
.
In the following example, the tar-artifact
resource is used as both input and
output. Thus, the input resource is copied into the customworkspace
directory,
as specified in the targetPath
field. The untar
Step
extracts the tarball
into the tar-scratch-space
directory. The edit-tar
Step
adds a new file,
and the tar-it-up
Step
creates a new tarball and places it in the
/workspace/customworkspace/
directory. When the Task
completes execution,
it places the resulting tarball in the /workspace/customworkspace
directory
and uploads it to the bucket defined in the tar-artifact
field.
resources:
inputs:
name: tar-artifact
targetPath: customworkspace
outputs:
name: tar-artifact
steps:
- name: untar
image: ubuntu
command: ["/bin/bash"]
args: ['-c', 'mkdir -p /workspace/tar-scratch-space/ && tar -xvf /workspace/customworkspace/rules_docker-master.tar -C /workspace/tar-scratch-space/']
- name: edit-tar
image: ubuntu
command: ["/bin/bash"]
args: ['-c', 'echo crazy > /workspace/tar-scratch-space/rules_docker-master/crazy.txt']
- name: tar-it-up
image: ubuntu
command: ["/bin/bash"]
args: ['-c', 'cd /workspace/tar-scratch-space/ && tar -cvf /workspace/customworkspace/rules_docker-master.tar rules_docker-master']
Workspaces
allow you to specify
one or more volumes that your Task
requires during execution. It is recommended that Tasks
uses at most
one writeable Workspace
. For example:
spec:
steps:
- name: write-message
image: ubuntu
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -xe
echo hello! > $(workspaces.messages.path)/message
workspaces:
- name: messages
description: The folder where we write the message to
mountPath: /custom/path/relative/to/root
For more information, see Using Workspaces
in Tasks
and the Workspaces
in a TaskRun
example YAML file.
A Task is able to emit string results that can be viewed by users and passed to other Tasks in a Pipeline. These
results have a wide variety of potential uses. To highlight just a few examples from the Tekton Catalog: the
git-clone
Task emits a
cloned commit SHA as a result, the generate-build-id
Task
emits a randomized ID as a result, and the kaniko
Task
emits a container image digest as a result. In each case these results convey information for users to see when
looking at their TaskRuns and can also be used in a Pipeline to pass data along from one Task to the next.
To define a Task's
results, use the results
field. Each results
entry in the Task's
YAML corresponds to a
file that the Task
should stores the result in. These files should be created by a Task
in the
/tekton/results
directory. The directory itself is created automatically if the Task
has
a results
field but it's the responsibility of the Task
to generate its contents.
It's important to note that Tekton does not perform any processing on the contents of results; they are emitted
verbatim from your Task including any leading or trailing whitespace characters. Make sure to write only the
precise string you want returned from your Task
into the /tekton/results/
files that your Task
creates.
You can use $(results.name.path)
to avoid having to hardcode this path.
In the example below, the Task
specifies two files in the results
field:
current-date-unix-timestamp
and current-date-human-readable
.
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
name: print-date
annotations:
description: |
A simple task that prints the date
spec:
results:
- name: current-date-unix-timestamp
description: The current date in unix timestamp format
- name: current-date-human-readable
description: The current date in human readable format
steps:
- name: print-date-unix-timestamp
image: bash:latest
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
date +%s | tee $(results.current-date-unix-timestamp.path)
- name: print-date-human-readable
image: bash:latest
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
date | tee $(results.current-date-human-readable.path)
The stored results can be used at the Task
level
or at the Pipeline
level.
Note: The maximum size of a Task's
results is limited by the container termination message feature of Kubernetes,
as results are passed back to the controller via this mechanism. At present, the limit is
"4096 bytes".
Results are written to the termination message encoded as JSON objects and Tekton uses those objects
to pass additional information to the controller. As such, Task
results are best suited for holding
small amounts of data, such as commit SHAs, branch names, ephemeral namespaces, and so on.
If your Task
writes a large number of small results, you can work around this limitation
by writing each result from a separate Step
so that each Step
has its own termination message.
If a termination message is detected as being too large the TaskRun will be placed into a failed state
with the following message: Termination message is above max allowed size 4096, caused by large task result
. Since Tekton also uses the termination message for some internal information, so the real
available size will less than 4096 bytes.
As a general rule-of-thumb, if a result needs to be larger than a kilobyte, you should likely use a
Workspace
to store and pass it between Tasks
within a Pipeline
.
Specifies one or more Volumes
that the Steps
in your
Task
require to execute in addition to volumes that are implicitly created for input and output resources.
For example, you can use Volumes
to do the following:
- Mount a Kubernetes
Secret
. - Create an
emptyDir
persistentVolume
that caches data across multipleSteps
. - Mount a Kubernetes
ConfigMap
asVolume
source. - Mount a host's Docker socket to use a
Dockerfile
for building container images. Note: Building a container image on-cluster usingdocker build
is very unsafe and is mentioned only for the sake of the example. Use kaniko instead.
The stepTemplate
field specifies a Container
configuration that will be used as the starting point for all of the Steps
in your
Task
. Individual configurations specified within Steps
supersede the template wherever
overlap occurs.
In the example below, the Task
specifies a stepTemplate
field with the environment variable
FOO
set to bar
. The first Step
in the Task
uses that value for FOO
, but the second Step
overrides the value set in the template with baz
.
stepTemplate:
env:
- name: "FOO"
value: "bar"
steps:
- image: ubuntu
command: [echo]
args: ["FOO is ${FOO}"]
- image: ubuntu
command: [echo]
args: ["FOO is ${FOO}"]
env:
- name: "FOO"
value: "baz"
The sidecars
field specifies a list of Containers
to run alongside the Steps
in your Task
. You can use Sidecars
to provide auxiliary functionality, such as
Docker in Docker or running a mock API server that your app can hit during testing.
Sidecars
spin up before your Task
executes and are deleted after the Task
execution completes.
For further information, see Sidecars
in TaskRuns
.
In the example below, a Step
uses a Docker-in-Docker Sidecar
to build a Docker image:
steps:
- image: docker
name: client
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
cat > Dockerfile << EOF
FROM ubuntu
RUN apt-get update
ENTRYPOINT ["echo", "hello"]
EOF
docker build -t hello . && docker run hello
docker images
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /var/run/
name: dind-socket
sidecars:
- image: docker:18.05-dind
name: server
securityContext:
privileged: true
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /var/lib/docker
name: dind-storage
- mountPath: /var/run/
name: dind-socket
volumes:
- name: dind-storage
emptyDir: {}
- name: dind-socket
emptyDir: {}
Sidecars, just like Steps
, can also run scripts:
sidecars:
- image: busybox
name: hello-sidecar
script: |
echo 'Hello from sidecar!'
Note: Tekton's current Sidecar
implementation contains a bug.
Tekton uses a container image named nop
to terminate Sidecars
.
That image is configured by passing a flag to the Tekton controller.
If the configured nop
image contains the exact command the Sidecar
was executing before receiving a "stop" signal, the Sidecar
keeps
running, eventually causing the TaskRun
to time out with an error.
For more information, see issue 1347.
The description
field is an optional field that allows you to add an informative description to the Task
.
Tekton provides variables to inject values into the contents of certain fields. The values you can inject come from a range of sources including other fields in the Task, context-sensitive information that Tekton provides, and runtime information received from a TaskRun.
The mechanism of variable substitution is quite simple - string replacement is performed by the Tekton Controller when a TaskRun is executed.
Tasks
allow you to substitute variable names for the following entities:
See the complete list of variable substitutions for Tasks and the list of fields that accept substitutions.
params
and resources
attributes can replace
variable values as follows:
- To reference a parameter in a
Task
, use the following syntax, where<name>
is the name of the parameter:$(params.<name>)
- To access parameter values from resources, see variable substitution
You can expand referenced parameters of type array
using the star operator. To do so, add the operator ([*]
)
to the named parameter to insert the array elements in the spot of the reference string.
For example, given a params
field with the contents listed below, you can expand
command: ["first", "$(params.array-param[*])", "last"]
to command: ["first", "some", "array", "elements", "last"]
:
params:
- name: array-param
value:
- "some"
- "array"
- "elements"
You must reference parameters of type array
in a completely isolated string within a larger string
array.
Referencing an array
parameter in any other way will result in an error. For example, if build-args
is a parameter of
type array
, then the following example is an invalid Step
because the string isn't isolated:
- name: build-step
image: gcr.io/cloud-builders/some-image
args: ["build", "additionalArg $(params.build-args[*])"]
Similarly, referencing build-args
in a non-array
field is also invalid:
- name: build-step
image: "$(params.build-args[*])"
args: ["build", "args"]
A valid reference to the build-args
parameter is isolated and in an eligible field (args
, in this case):
- name: build-step
image: gcr.io/cloud-builders/some-image
args: ["build", "$(params.build-args[*])", "additionalArg"]
You can substitute paths to Workspaces
specified within a Task
as follows:
$(workspaces.myworkspace.path)
Since the Volume
name is randomized and only set when the Task
executes, you can also
substitute the volume name as follows:
$(workspaces.myworkspace.volume)
You can substitute Volume
names and types
by parameterizing them. Tekton supports popular Volume
types such as ConfigMap
, Secret
, and PersistentVolumeClaim
.
See this example to find out how to perform this type of substitution
in your Task.
Variables can contain any string, including snippets of script that can
be injected into a Task's Script
field. If you are using Tekton's variables
in your Task's Script
field be aware that the strings you're interpolating
could include executable instructions.
Preventing a substituted variable from executing as code depends on the container
image, language or shell that your Task uses. Here's an example of interpolating
a Tekton variable into a bash
Script
block that prevents the variable's string
contents from being executed:
# Task.yaml
spec:
steps:
- image: an-image-that-runs-bash
env:
- name: SCRIPT_CONTENTS
value: $(params.script)
script: |
printf '%s' "${SCRIPT_CONTENTS}" > input-script
This works by injecting Tekton's variable as an environment variable into the Step's
container. The printf
program is then used to write the environment variable's
content to a file.
Study the following code examples to better understand how to configure your Tasks
:
- Building and pushing a Docker image
- Mounting multiple
Volumes
- Mounting a
ConfigMap
as aVolume
source - Using a
Secret
as an environment source - Using a
Sidecar
in aTask
Tip: See the collection of simple examples for additional code samples.
The following example Task
builds and pushes a Dockerfile
-built image.
Note: Building a container image using docker build
on-cluster is very
unsafe and is shown here only as a demonstration. Use kaniko instead.
spec:
params:
# These may be overridden, but provide sensible defaults.
- name: directory
type: string
description: The directory containing the build context.
default: /workspace
- name: dockerfileName
type: string
description: The name of the Dockerfile
default: Dockerfile
resources:
inputs:
- name: workspace
type: git
outputs:
- name: builtImage
type: image
steps:
- name: dockerfile-build
image: gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker
workingDir: "$(params.directory)"
args:
[
"build",
"--no-cache",
"--tag",
"$(resources.outputs.image.url)",
"--file",
"$(params.dockerfileName)",
".",
]
volumeMounts:
- name: docker-socket
mountPath: /var/run/docker.sock
- name: dockerfile-push
image: gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker
args: ["push", "$(resources.outputs.image.url)"]
volumeMounts:
- name: docker-socket
mountPath: /var/run/docker.sock
# As an implementation detail, this Task mounts the host's daemon socket.
volumes:
- name: docker-socket
hostPath:
path: /var/run/docker.sock
type: Socket
The example below illustrates mounting multiple Volumes
:
spec:
steps:
- image: ubuntu
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
curl https://foo.com > /var/my-volume
volumeMounts:
- name: my-volume
mountPath: /var/my-volume
- image: ubuntu
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
cat /etc/my-volume
volumeMounts:
- name: my-volume
mountPath: /etc/my-volume
volumes:
- name: my-volume
emptyDir: {}
The example below illustrates how to mount a ConfigMap
to act as a Volume
source:
spec:
params:
- name: CFGNAME
type: string
description: Name of config map
- name: volumeName
type: string
description: Name of volume
steps:
- image: ubuntu
script: |
#!/usr/bin/env bash
cat /var/configmap/test
volumeMounts:
- name: "$(params.volumeName)"
mountPath: /var/configmap
volumes:
- name: "$(params.volumeName)"
configMap:
name: "$(params.CFGNAME)"
The example below illustrates how to use a Secret
as an environment source:
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
name: goreleaser
spec:
params:
- name: package
type: string
description: base package to build in
- name: github-token-secret
type: string
description: name of the secret holding the github-token
default: github-token
resources:
inputs:
- name: source
type: git
targetPath: src/$(params.package)
steps:
- name: release
image: goreleaser/goreleaser
workingDir: /workspace/src/$(params.package)
command:
- goreleaser
args:
- release
env:
- name: GOPATH
value: /workspace
- name: GITHUB_TOKEN
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: $(params.github-token-secret)
key: bot-token
The example below illustrates how to use a Sidecar
in your Task
:
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
name: with-sidecar-task
spec:
params:
- name: sidecar-image
type: string
description: Image name of the sidecar container
- name: sidecar-env
type: string
description: Environment variable value
sidecars:
- name: sidecar
image: $(params.sidecar-image)
env:
- name: SIDECAR_ENV
value: $(params.sidecar-env)
steps:
- name: test
image: hello-world
This section describes techniques for debugging the most common issues in Tasks
.
A common issue when configuring Tasks
stems from not knowing the location of your data.
For the most part, files ingested and output by your Task
live in the /workspace
directory,
but the specifics can vary. To inspect the file structure of your Task
, add a step that outputs
the name of every file stored in the /workspace
directory to the build log. For example:
- name: build-and-push-1
image: ubuntu
command:
- /bin/bash
args:
- -c
- |
set -ex
find /workspace
You can also choose to examine the contents of every file used by your Task
:
- name: build-and-push-1
image: ubuntu
command:
- /bin/bash
args:
- -c
- |
set -ex
find /workspace | xargs cat
To inspect the contents of the Pod
used by your Task
at a specific stage in the Task's
execution,
log into the Pod
and add a Step
that pauses the Task
at the desired stage. For example:
- name: pause
image: docker
args: ["sleep", "6000"]
All steps that do not require to be run as a root user should make use of TaskRun features to
designate the container for a step runs as a user without root permissions. As a best practice,
running containers as non root should be built into the container image to avoid any possibility
of the container being run as root. However, as a further measure of enforcing this practice,
steps can make use of a securityContext
to specify how the container should run.
An example of running Task steps as a non root user is shown below:
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
name: show-non-root-steps
spec:
steps:
# no securityContext specified so will use
# securityContext from TaskRun podTemplate
- name: show-user-1001
image: ubuntu
command:
- ps
args:
- "aux"
# securityContext specified so will run as
# user 2000 instead of 1001
- name: show-user-2000
image: ubuntu
command:
- ps
args:
- "aux"
securityContext:
runAsUser: 2000
---
apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: TaskRun
metadata:
generateName: show-non-root-steps-run-
spec:
taskRef:
name: show-non-root-steps
podTemplate:
securityContext:
runAsNonRoot: true
runAsUser: 1001
In the example above, the step show-user-2000
specifies via a securityContext
that the container
for the step should run as user 2000. A securityContext
must still be specified via a TaskRun podTemplate
for this TaskRun to run in a Kubernetes environment that enforces running containers as non root as a requirement.
The runAsNonRoot
property specified via the podTemplate
above validates that steps part of this TaskRun are
running as non root users and will fail to start any step container that attempts to run as root. Only specifying
runAsNonRoot: true
will not actually run containers as non root as the property simply validates that steps are not
running as root. It is the runAsUser
property that is actually used to set the non root user ID for the container.
If a step defines its own securityContext
, it will be applied for the step container over the securityContext
specified at the pod level via the TaskRun podTemplate
.
More information about Pod and Container Security Contexts can be found via the Kubernetes website.
The example Task/TaskRun above can be found as a TaskRun example.
Except as otherwise noted, the contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.