Building Automated Deployment Pipelines with Drone CI

Overview

As organizations continue adopting microservices and containerized architectures, the demand for fast and reliable CI/CD pipelines has never been higher. Traditional CI/CD solutions often rely on heavyweight agents, inconsistent environments, and complex integrations. Drone CI, a lightweight and container-native CI/CD platform, solves these challenges by executing every pipeline step inside Docker containers. This makes Drone CI inherently portable, reproducible, and easy to integrate into modern DevOps ecosystems.

In this blog, we explore how to build an end-to-end CI/CD pipeline using Drone CI, with a focus on multi-stage Docker builds and automated Kubernetes deployments. We will walk through practical examples, real YAML configurations, and container deployment scripts, making this blog hands-on and implementation oriented.

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Introduction

Drone CI is a container-native CI/CD tool designed for cloud-native teams. Unlike traditional systems that depend on dedicated build servers or virtual machines, Drone launches every pipeline step using Docker containers. This enables:

Consistent build environments
Simple dependency management
Scalable isolation
Clear and declarative pipeline definitions using .drone.yml

Drone integrates seamlessly with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, and other Git providers, enabling automatic pipeline triggers on commit, pull request, or tag.

This blog focuses on two major capabilities Drone CI excels at:

Multi-stage Docker Builds

Multi-stage Docker builds help reduce image size, improve security, and optimize runtime environments. This is especially beneficial for production workloads running on Kubernetes.

Automated Kubernetes Deployments

Drone CI interacts directly with Kubernetes using kubectl, Helm, or Kustomize plugins. This enables fully automated deployments once a Docker image is successfully built and pushed to a registry.

Together, these capabilities help implement a robust end-to-end CI/CD pipeline suitable for enterprise workloads.

Key Features of Drone CI for Docker & Kubernetes Workflows

First-Class Multi-Stage Docker Build Support

Drone CI runs Docker natively and supports multi-stage builds without any additional configuration. This allows you to:

Build optimized production images
Separate build and runtime dependencies
Improve security by reducing image footprint
Reduce the attack surface by removing unnecessary packages

Example Multi-Stage Dockerfile:

# -------- Stage 1: Build --------
FROM node:18-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

# -------- Stage 2: Runtime --------
FROM nginx:1.25-alpine
COPY --from=builder /app/dist /usr/share/nginx/html
EXPOSE 80
CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

# -------- Stage 1: Build --------

FROM node:18-alpine AS builder

WORKDIR /app

COPY package*.json ./

RUN npm install

COPY . .

RUN npm run build

# -------- Stage 2: Runtime --------

FROM nginx:1.25-alpine

COPY --from=builder /app/dist /usr/share/nginx/html

EXPOSE 80

CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

Automated Kubernetes Deployments (kubectl plugin)

Drone CI provides powerful plugins for Kubernetes, allowing you to:

Apply Kubernetes manifests
Patch deployments
Update container images
Perform rolling updates
Verify rollout status

Example Kubernetes Deployment YAML:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: demo-app
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: demo-app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: demo-app
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: demo-app
          image: your-dockerhub-username/demo-app:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: demo-service
spec:
  type: ClusterIP
  selector:
    app: demo-app
  ports:
    - port: 80
      targetPort: 80

apiVersion: apps/v1

kind: Deployment

metadata:

spec:

replicas: 2

selector:

matchLabels:

app: demo-app

template:

metadata:

labels:

app: demo-app

spec:

containers:

- name: demo-app

image: your-dockerhub-username/demo-app:latest

ports:

- containerPort: 80

---

apiVersion: v1

kind: Service

metadata:

spec:

type: ClusterIP

selector:

app: demo-app

ports:

- port: 80

targetPort: 80

Simple YAML-Based Pipeline Configuration

Drone pipelines are defined in a .drone.yml file stored alongside your application code. This ensures pipeline-as-code, version control, and easy collaboration.

Drone CI Build + Push Pipeline:

kind: pipeline
type: docker
name: build-and-push

steps:
  - name: build
    image: plugins/docker
    settings:
      repo: your-dockerhub-username/demo-app
      tags: latest
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      username:
        from_secret: docker_username
      password:
        from_secret: docker_password

kind: pipeline

type: docker

steps:

- name: build

image: plugins/docker

settings:

repo: your-dockerhub-username/demo-app

tags: latest

dockerfile: Dockerfile

username:

from_secret: docker_username

password:

from_secret: docker_password

Secure Secrets Handling

Drone CI encrypts secrets such as:

Docker credentials
Kubernetes tokens
API keys

They are never exposed in logs and only injected into the required steps.

End-to-End CI/CD Pipeline Combining Build + Deploy

Below is a complete Drone CI pipeline that builds a Docker image, pushes it, and deploys it to Kubernetes:

kind: pipeline
type: docker
name: drone-ci-cicd
steps:
  - name: build-and-push
    image: plugins/docker
    settings:
      repo: your-dockerhub-username/demo-app
      tags: latest
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      username:
        from_secret: docker_username
      password:
        from_secret: docker_password

  - name: deploy-to-k8s
    image: bitnami/kubectl:latest
    environment:
      KUBECONFIG:
        from_secret: kubeconfig
    commands:
      - kubectl apply -f k8s/deployment.yaml
      - kubectl rollout status deployment/demo-app

kind: pipeline

type: docker

steps:

- name: build-and-push

image: plugins/docker

settings:

repo: your-dockerhub-username/demo-app

tags: latest

dockerfile: Dockerfile

username:

from_secret: docker_username

password:

from_secret: docker_password

- name: deploy-to-k8s

image: bitnami/kubectl:latest

environment:

KUBECONFIG:

from_secret: kubeconfig

commands:

- kubectl apply -f k8s/deployment.yaml

- kubectl rollout status deployment/demo-app

drone

Source: https://webhookrelay.com/images/blog/drone/drone.png

Drone CI vs Traditional CI/CD Pipelines

drone2

Conclusion

Drone CI is one of the most efficient and modern CI/CD tools for cloud-native applications. Its container-first approach simplifies dependency management, ensures consistent environments, and improves build performance. By leveraging multi-stage Docker builds, Drone enables the creation of optimized production images, while its Kubernetes integration facilitates seamless automated deployments.

With Drone CI, teams can accelerate release cycles, reduce deployment errors, and standardize their DevOps workflows. As Kubernetes adoption continues to rise, Drone CI stands out as a powerful, flexible, and lightweight CI/CD solution tailored for modern engineering teams.

Drop a query if you have any questions regarding Drone CI and we will get back to you quickly.

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FAQs

1. Does Drone CI support multi-stage Docker builds?

ANS: – Yes. Multi-stage Docker builds work seamlessly with Drone CI, as it utilizes Docker for build execution.

2. Can Drone deploy applications directly to Kubernetes?

ANS: – Yes. Using kubectl, Helm, or Kustomize plugins, Drone can fully automate Kubernetes deployments.

3. How secure is secrets handling in Drone CI?

ANS: – Drone encrypts all secrets and injects them only during pipeline runtime.

WRITTEN BY Akshay Acharya

Akshay Acharya works as a Research Associate at CloudThat. He possesses strong analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, knowledge of AWS cloud services, migration, infrastructure setup, and security, as well as the ability to quickly adopt new technologies and learn.