Step Library

Harness 3.0 ships with 109+ pre-built step templates across CI, CD, IaCM, CV, and Integration modules; versioned, containerized actions that are the building blocks of pipelines.

Harness 3.0 ships with 109+ pre-built step templates across CI, CD, IaCM, and CV modules. Steps are the building blocks of pipelines: each step is a versioned, containerized action that runs inside a pipeline stage. The step library uses a template-based architecture where each step is defined in YAML with typed inputs, layout configuration, and containerized execution.

109+ total steps	5 categories (CI, CD, IaCM, CV, Integration)
All versioned (semver)	Containerized execution

CI steps

Continuous Integration steps handle building, testing, scanning, caching, and publishing artifacts. These steps run inside CI stages and support both Harness Cloud and self-hosted build infrastructure.

See CI Steps for the full reference.

Step Name	Description
Build & Push to Docker	Build a Docker image and push to Docker registry
Build & Push to ECR	Build and push to AWS ECR
Build & Push to GAR	Build and push to Google Artifact Registry
Build & Push to Harness AR	Build and push to Harness Artifact Registry
Build Intelligence	Auto-cache build outputs for faster builds
Git Clone	Clone repository code
Run (v2)	Execute shell scripts
Bandit Security Scan	Python security vulnerability scanning
Gitleaks Security Scan	Secret detection scanning
SBOM Orchestration	Generate/ingest Software Bill of Materials
Save/Restore Cache (S3)	Cache to/from AWS S3
Save/Restore Cache (GCS)	Cache to/from Google Cloud Storage
Save/Restore Cache (Harness)	Cache to/from Harness storage
Upload Artifacts to S3	Upload build artifacts to S3
Upload Artifacts to GCS	Upload build artifacts to GCS
Upload to JFrog Artifactory	Upload Docker images to JFrog

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Kubernetes steps

Kubernetes steps handle deploying, rolling back, and managing applications on Kubernetes clusters across multiple deployment strategies.

See Kubernetes Steps for the full reference.

Step Name	Description
K8s Rolling Deploy	Rolling deployment with steady state check
K8s Rolling Rollback	Rollback a rolling release
K8s Blue-Green Deploy	Create services and pods for blue-green
K8s Blue-Green Swap	Swap service selectors between stages
K8s Blue-Green Scale Down	Scale down stage environment
K8s Canary Deploy	Deploy canary subset of pods
K8s Canary Delete	Clean up canary deployment
K8s Apply	Apply manifests to cluster
K8s Delete	Delete resources from cluster
K8s Scale	Scale workloads up/down
K8s Patch	Patch workload resources
K8s Diff	Compare cluster state with manifests
K8s Dry Run	Validate manifests without applying
K8s Steady State Check	Check workload status
K8s Traffic Routing	Shift traffic between versions
Helm Deploy Basic	Deploy chart with basic strategy
Helm Blue-Green Deploy	Blue-green Helm deployment
Helm Canary Deploy	Canary Helm deployment
Helm Rollback	Roll back a Helm release
Helm Delete	Uninstall a Helm release

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Cloud steps

Cloud steps handle deploying and managing applications on cloud-native services including ECS, Google Cloud Run, Azure Functions, AWS CDK, SAM, and Serverless Framework.

See Cloud Steps for the full reference.

Step Name	Description
ECS Blue-Green Deploy	ECS blue-green with target group swap or traffic shift
ECS Run Task	Execute an ECS task
Google Cloud Run Deploy	Deploy to Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run Rollback	Rollback a Cloud Run revision
Google Cloud Run Traffic Shift	Shift traffic between Cloud Run revisions
Google Cloud Run Job	Execute a Cloud Run job
Azure Function Deploy	Deploy Azure Functions
Azure Function Rollback	Rollback Azure Functions deployment
AWS CDK Deploy	Deploy infrastructure with AWS CDK
AWS CDK Destroy	Tear down AWS CDK stacks
AWS SAM Build	Build Serverless Application Model artifacts
AWS SAM Deploy	Deploy Serverless Application Model stacks
Serverless Deploy	Deploy with Serverless Framework
Serverless Package	Package Serverless Framework application
Serverless Rollback	Rollback Serverless Framework deployment
SSH	Execute shell on remote host
WinRM	Execute PowerShell on remote host
Email	Send email notifications

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IaCM steps

Infrastructure as Code Management steps handle provisioning and managing infrastructure using Terraform, OpenTofu, and related tooling. These steps provide first-class support for infrastructure lifecycle operations within pipelines.

See IaCM Steps for the full reference.

Step Name	Description
Terraform Step	Run Terraform commands (init, plan, apply, destroy, etc.)
OpenTofu Step	Run OpenTofu commands
TFLint Step	Run TFLint for Terraform linting
Tofu Module Test	Test OpenTofu modules

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Integration steps

Integration steps connect pipelines with external services for HTTP requests, ticketing systems, approvals, and CI/CD tool orchestration.

See Integration Steps for the full reference.

Step Name	Description
HTTP Step	Execute HTTP requests with assertions and output variables
Jira Create	Create Jira issues
Jira Update	Update Jira issues
Jira Approval	Approve/reject via Jira
ServiceNow Create	Create ServiceNow tickets
ServiceNow Update	Update ServiceNow tickets
ServiceNow Approval	Approve/reject via ServiceNow
ServiceNow Import Set	Import records
Jenkins Build	Execute Jenkins jobs
Bamboo Build	Execute Bamboo plans
AI Verify	AI-based verification with intelligent anomaly detection and log analysis

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How steps work

Every step in the Harness 3.0 step library follows a consistent template-based architecture. Understanding the anatomy of a step helps you use steps effectively and troubleshoot issues when they arise.

• Versioned Templates: Each step is a versioned template (semver) stored in the template library. You reference steps by name and version (e.g., buildAndPushToDocker@1.0.0).

• Typed Inputs: Steps declare typed inputs (string, boolean, select, connector, array, key-value-pairs, list) that are validated before execution.

• Layout Configuration: Steps have a layout configuration that controls how the UI renders input fields in the visual pipeline editor.

• Containerized Execution: Steps execute in containers (Docker images like plugins/kaniko, harnessdev/helm-deploy:0.0.1, etc.).

• Strategies: Steps can be composed into strategies (groups of steps for deploy workflows such as rolling, canary, or blue-green).

• Conditional Execution: Steps support conditional execution via if expressions, enabling dynamic pipeline behavior based on runtime context.

Using a step in a pipeline

Reference a step by its template name and version using the uses keyword, and pass inputs via the with block.

pipeline:
  stages:
    - name: build
      steps:
        - name: build-docker-image
          uses: buildAndPushToDocker@1.0.0
          with:
            connector: account.dockerhub
            repo: myorg/myapp
            tags:
              - latest
              - <+pipeline.sequenceId>

Step template anatomy

Behind every step in the library is a template definition that declares the step's identity, inputs, layout, and container execution configuration. See Step Templates for a full reference.

template:
  id: stepName
  name: Step Display Name
  version: 1
  module:
    - ci
  inputs:
    connector:
      type: connector
      label: Docker Connector
      required: true
    tags:
      type: array
      label: Tags
      required: true
  layout:
    - connector
    - tags
  step:
    run:
      container:
        image: plugins/kaniko
      env:
        PLUGIN_TAGS: ${{inputs.tags}}

STEP VERSIONING

Each step in the library is independently versioned using semver. Pin specific versions in your pipelines for stability, or use @latest for the newest version.