Events in Tekton

Tekton’s task controller emits Kubernetes events when TaskRuns and PipelineRuns execute. This allows you to monitor and react to what’s happening during execution by retrieving those events using the kubectl describe command. Tekton can also emit CloudEvents.

Note: Conditions do not yet emit events.

Events in TaskRuns

TaskRuns emit events for the following Reasons:

  • Started: emitted the first time the TaskRun is picked by the reconciler from its work queue, so it only happens if webhook validation was successful. This event in itself does not indicate that a Step is executing; the Step executes once the following conditions are satisfied:
    • Validation of the Task and its associated resources must succeed, and
    • Checks for associated Conditions must succeed, and
    • Scheduling of the associated Pod must succeed.
  • Succeeded: emitted once all steps in the TaskRun have executed successfully, including post-steps injected by Tekton.
  • Failed: emitted if the TaskRun finishes running unsuccessfully because a Step failed, or the TaskRun timed out or was cancelled. A TaskRun also emits Failed events if it cannot execute at all due to failing validation.

Events in PipelineRuns

PipelineRuns emit events for the following Reasons:

  • Started: emitted the first time the PipelineRun is picked by the reconciler from its work queue, so it only happens if webhook validation was successful. This event in itself does not indicate that a Step is executing; the Step executes once validation for the Pipeline as well as all associated Tasks and Resources is successful.
  • Running: emitted when the PipelineRun passes validation and actually begins execution.
  • Succeeded: emitted once all Tasks reachable via the DAG have executed successfully.
  • Failed: emitted if the PipelineRun finishes running unsuccessfully because a Task failed or the PipelineRun timed out or was cancelled. A PipelineRun also emits Failed events if it cannot execute at all due to failing validation.

Events via CloudEvents

When you configure a sink, Tekton emits events as described in the table below.

Tekton sends cloud events in a parallel routine to allow for retries without blocking the reconciler. A routine is started every time the Succeeded condition changes - either state, reason or message. Retries are sent using an exponential back-off strategy. Because of retries, events are not guaranteed to be sent to the target sink in the order they happened.

Resource Event Event Type
TaskRun Started dev.tekton.event.taskrun.started.v1
TaskRun Running dev.tekton.event.taskrun.running.v1
TaskRun Condition Change while Running dev.tekton.event.taskrun.unknown.v1
TaskRun Succeed dev.tekton.event.taskrun.successful.v1
TaskRun Failed dev.tekton.event.taskrun.failed.v1
PipelineRun Started dev.tekton.event.pipelinerun.started.v1
PipelineRun Running dev.tekton.event.pipelinerun.running.v1
PipelineRun Condition Change while Running dev.tekton.event.pipelinerun.unknown.v1
PipelineRun Succeed dev.tekton.event.pipelinerun.successful.v1
PipelineRun Failed dev.tekton.event.pipelinerun.failed.v1