Tekton [1] works in a similar manner where the pipeline stages define inputs, outputs and tasks. The great part about Tekton is it provides a set of building blocks that can be integrated into a larger system.

I hope to integrate Tekton into Drone [2] and allow individual projects to choose their pipeline execution engine. Projects can choose to start with a more basic engine, knowing they have the option to grow into something more powerful (and complex) when they need to.

[1] https://tekton.dev/ [2] https://github.com/drone/drone/issues/2680