Pipelines with Tekton

Easily view Tekton PipelineRun status for your services in Backstage.

NPM

Tekton plugin for Backstage

The Tekton plugin enables you to visualize the PipelineRun resources available on the Kubernetes cluster.

For administrators​

Setting up the Tekton plugin​

Prerequisites​

• The Kubernetes plugins including @backstage/plugin-kubernetes and @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-backend are installed and configured by following the installation and configuration guides.

• The following customResources component is added in the app-config.yaml file:

   kubernetes:
     ...
     customResources:
       - group: 'tekton.dev'
         apiVersion: 'v1'
         plural: 'pipelineruns'
       - group: 'tekton.dev'
         apiVersion: 'v1'
         plural: 'taskruns'
  

• The Kubernetes plugin is configured and connects to the cluster using a ServiceAccount.

• The ClusterRole must be granted for custom resources (PipelineRuns and TaskRuns) to ServiceAccount accessing the cluster.

• To view the pod logs, you have granted permissions for pods/log.

• If you have the Backstage Kubernetes Plugin configured, then the ClusterRole is already granted.

  You can use the following code to grant the ClusterRole for custom resources and pod logs:

    ...
    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
    kind: ClusterRole
    metadata:
      name: backstage-read-only
    rules:
      - apiGroups:
          - ""
        resources:
          - pods/log
        verbs:
          - get
          - list
          - watch
      ...
      - apiGroups:
          - tekton.dev
        resources:
          - pipelineruns
          - taskruns
        verbs:
          - get
          - list
  
  

  Tip: You can use the prepared manifest for a read-only ClusterRole, which provides access for both Kubernetes plugin and Tekton plugin.

• The following annotation is added to the entity's catalog-info.yaml file to identify whether an entity contains the Kubernetes resources:

  annotations:
    ...
  
    backstage.io/kubernetes-id: <BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME>
  

  You can also add the backstage.io/kubernetes-namespace annotation to identify the Kubernetes resources using the defined namespace.

  annotations:
    ...
  
    backstage.io/kubernetes-namespace: <RESOURCE_NS>
  

• The following annotation is added to the catalog-info.yaml file of the entity to enable the Tekton related features in Backstage. The value of the annotation identifies the name of the Backstage entity:

  annotations:
    ...
  
    janus-idp.io/tekton : <BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME>
  

• A custom label selector can be added, which Backstage uses to find the Kubernetes resources. The label selector takes precedence over the ID annotations.

  annotations:
    ...
  
    backstage.io/kubernetes-label-selector: 'app=my-app,component=front-end'
  

• The following label is added to the resources so that the Kubernetes plugin gets the Kubernetes resources from the requested entity:

  labels:
    ...
  
    backstage.io/kubernetes-id: <BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME>`
  

  ---

  NOTE

  When using the label selector, the mentioned labels must be present on the resource.

  ---

Procedure​

1. Install the Tekton plugin using the following command:

   yarn workspace app add @janus-idp/backstage-plugin-tekton
   

2. Enable the PipelineRun list in the CI/CD tab on the entity view page.

   packages/app/src/components/catalog/EntityPage.tsx

   import {
     isTektonCIAvailable,
     TektonCI,
   } from '@janus-idp/backstage-plugin-tekton';
   
   const cicdContent = (
     <EntitySwitch>
       {/* ... */}
       <EntitySwitch.Case if={isTektonCIAvailable}>
         <TektonCI />
       </EntitySwitch.Case>
     </EntitySwitch>
   );
   

For users​

Using the Tekton plugin in Backstage​

Tekton is a front-end plugin that enables you to view the PipelineRun resources.

Prerequisites​

• Your Backstage application is installed and running.
• You have installed the Tekton plugin. For the installation process, see Installation.

Procedure​

1. Open your Backstage application and select a component from the Catalog page.

2. Go to the CI/CD tab.

   The CI/CD tab displays the list of PipelineRun resources associated with a Kubernetes cluster. The list contains pipeline run details, such as NAME, STATUS, TASK STATUS, STARTED, and DURATION.

   

3. Click on expand row button besides PipelineRun name in the list to view the PipelineRun visualization. The pipeline run resource include tasks to complete. When you hover the mouse pointer on a task card, you can view the steps to complete that particular task.