Artifacts

Overview

🌱 Artifacts is an alpha feature. The enable-artifacts feature flag must be set to "true" to read or write artifacts in a step.

Artifacts provide a way to track the origin of data produced and consumed within your Tekton Tasks.

Artifact Provenance Data

Artifacts fall into two categories:

  • Inputs: Artifacts downloaded and used by the Step/Task.
  • Outputs: Artifacts created and uploaded by the Step/Task. Example Structure:
{
  "inputs":[
    {
      "name": "<input-category-name>", 
      "values": [
        {
          "uri": "pkg:github/package-url/purl-spec@244fd47e07d1004f0aed9c", 
          "digest": { "sha256": "b35caccc..." }
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "outputs": [
    {
      "name": "<output-category-name>",
      "values": [
        {
          "uri": "pkg:oci/nginx:stable-alpine3.17-slim?repository_url=docker.io/library",
          "digest": {
            "sha256": "df85b9e3...",
            "sha1": "95588b8f..."
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

The content is written by the Step to a file $(step.artifacts.path):

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1
kind: TaskRun
metadata:
  generateName: step-artifacts-
spec:
  taskSpec:
    description: |
            A simple task that populates artifacts to TaskRun stepState
    steps:
      - name: artifacts-producer
        image: bash:latest
        script: |
          cat > $(step.artifacts.path) << EOF
          {
            "inputs":[
              {
                "name":"source",
                "values":[
                  {
                    "uri":"pkg:github/package-url/purl-spec@244fd47e07d1004f0aed9c",
                    "digest":{
                      "sha256":"b35cacccfdb1e24dc497d15d553891345fd155713ffe647c281c583269eaaae0"
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            ],
            "outputs":[
              {
                "name":"image",
                "values":[
                  {
                    "uri":"pkg:oci/nginx:stable-alpine3.17-slim?repository_url=docker.io/library",
                    "digest":{
                      "sha256":"df85b9e3983fe2ce20ef76ad675ecf435cc99fc9350adc54fa230bae8c32ce48",
                      "sha1":"95588b8f34c31eb7d62c92aaa4e6506639b06ef2"
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            ]
          }
          EOF

It is recommended to use purl format for artifacts uri as shown in the example.

Passing Artifacts between Steps

You can pass artifacts from one step to the next using:

  • Specific Artifact: $(steps.<step-name>.inputs.<artifact-category-name>) or $(steps.<step-name>.outputs.<artifact-category-name>)
  • Default (First) Artifact: $(steps.<step-name>.inputs) or $(steps.<step-name>.outputs) (if is omitted)

The example below shows how to access the previous’ step artifacts from another step in the same task

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1
kind: TaskRun
metadata:
  generateName: step-artifacts-
spec:
  taskSpec:
    description: |
            A simple task that populates artifacts to TaskRun stepState
    steps:
      - name: artifacts-producer
        image: bash:latest
        script: |
          # the script is for creating the output artifacts
          cat > $(step.artifacts.path) << EOF
          {
            "inputs":[
              {
                "name":"source",
                "values":[
                  {
                    "uri":"pkg:github/package-url/purl-spec@244fd47e07d1004f0aed9c",
                    "digest":{
                      "sha256":"b35cacccfdb1e24dc497d15d553891345fd155713ffe647c281c583269eaaae0"
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            ],
            "outputs":[
              {
                "name":"image",
                "values":[
                  {
                    "uri":"pkg:oci/nginx:stable-alpine3.17-slim?repository_url=docker.io/library",
                    "digest":{
                      "sha256":"df85b9e3983fe2ce20ef76ad675ecf435cc99fc9350adc54fa230bae8c32ce48",
                      "sha1":"95588b8f34c31eb7d62c92aaa4e6506639b06ef2"
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            ]
          }
          EOF          
      - name: artifacts-consumer
        image: bash:latest
        script: |
                    echo $(steps.artifacts-producer.outputs)

The resolved value of $(steps.<step-name>.outputs.<artifact-category-name>) or $(steps.<step-name>.outputs) is the values of an artifact. For this example, $(steps.artifacts-producer.outputs) is resolved to

[
                  {
                    "uri":"pkg:oci/nginx:stable-alpine3.17-slim?repository_url=docker.io/library",
                    "digest":{
                      "sha256":"df85b9e3983fe2ce20ef76ad675ecf435cc99fc9350adc54fa230bae8c32ce48",
                      "sha1":"95588b8f34c31eb7d62c92aaa4e6506639b06ef2"
                    }
                  }
]

Upon resolution and execution of the TaskRun, the Status will look something like:

"steps": [
      {
        "container": "step-artifacts-producer",
        "imageID": "docker.io/library/bash@sha256:5353512b79d2963e92a2b97d9cb52df72d32f94661aa825fcfa0aede73304743",
        "inputs": [
          {
            "name": "source",
            "values": [
              {
                "digest": {
                  "sha256": "b35cacccfdb1e24dc497d15d553891345fd155713ffe647c281c583269eaaae0"
                },
                "uri":"pkg:github/package-url/purl-spec@244fd47e07d1004f0aed9c",
              }
            ]
          }
        ],
        "name": "artifacts-producer",
        "outputs": [
          {
            "name": "image",
            "values": [
              {
                "digest": {
                  "sha1": "95588b8f34c31eb7d62c92aaa4e6506639b06ef2",
                  "sha256": "df85b9e3983fe2ce20ef76ad675ecf435cc99fc9350adc54fa230bae8c32ce48"
                },
                "uri":"pkg:oci/nginx:stable-alpine3.17-slim?repository_url=docker.io/library",
              }
            ]
          }
        ],
        "terminated": {
          "containerID": "containerd://010f02d103d1db48531327a1fe09797c87c1d50b6a216892319b3af93e0f56e7",
          "exitCode": 0,
          "finishedAt": "2024-03-18T17:05:06Z",
          "message": "...",
          "reason": "Completed",
          "startedAt": "2024-03-18T17:05:06Z"
        },
        "terminationReason": "Completed"
      },
      {
        "container": "step-artifacts-consumer",
        "imageID": "docker.io/library/bash@sha256:5353512b79d2963e92a2b97d9cb52df72d32f94661aa825fcfa0aede73304743",
        "name": "artifacts-consumer",
        "terminated": {
          "containerID": "containerd://42428aa7e5a507eba924239f213d185dd4bc0882b6f217a79e6792f7fec3586e",
          "exitCode": 0,
          "finishedAt": "2024-03-18T17:05:06Z",
          "reason": "Completed",
          "startedAt": "2024-03-18T17:05:06Z"
        },
        "terminationReason": "Completed"
      }
    ],