Akuity, the provider of the leading software delivery platform built by the creators of Argo CD and Kargo, has introduced Custom Steps in its platform. Custom Steps is a container-based extensibility model that provides platform and security teams with a native way to define promotion logic directly in Kargo.
Custom Steps is a container-based interface enabling Kargo to natively execute any promotion logic packaged as OCI images.
Platform teams can integrate internal and third-party tools such as Ansible and OPA into environment promotion sequences.
Custom Steps are registered at the system level, making them usable across the organization without duplicating logic.
Every step in the promotion sequence is version-controlled, traceable, and observable in one place for auditability.
Akuity recently celebrated 5 years of growth, surpassing 100 customers and 43 million deployments fueled by AI demand.
Kargo automates moving changes through environments from dev to staging to production by orchestrating promotion steps.
“With Custom Steps, platform and security teams can define org-specific environment promotion logic. They can integrate with third-party tools, gain complete visibility into their promotion pipelines and ensure built-in governance and compliance through comprehensive audit trails. This expansion is a natural step to streamline continuous application delivery and remove any manual intervention or duct-tape tooling,” said Hong Wang, co-founder and CEO of Akuity.
Kargo is a GitOps-native continuous environment promotion tool that automates moving changes through environments — dev to staging to production — by orchestrating a sequence of promotion steps that update Git, render manifests and sync Argo CD applications.
Custom Steps is a major expansion of Kargo’s capabilities in the Akuity platform. It is a container-based interface that enables Kargo to natively execute any promotion logic. It is packaged as OCI images and registered cluster-wide by a Kargo admin. Once registered, any team in the cluster can reference a custom step by name in their promotion templates. Each step runs in a Kubernetes Pod at execution time, with its inputs, outputs and result recorded in the Kargo promotion record alongside every other step in the sequence.
Custom Steps offers a wide range of benefits for platform teams. Regarding integration with existing tools, teams can now bring internal and third-party tools, such as Ansible and OPA, into the environment promotion sequence without requiring Kargo to natively support them. Users can also reuse existing scripts and tooling without rewriting them.
With a “build once, use everywhere” approach, Custom Steps are registered at the system level, making them usable by application and platform teams across the organization. This means that there is no duplication of logic across teams.
The solution is flexible, as with built-in steps, Custom Steps can be inserted anywhere in the promotion sequence - before, during or after core GitOps operations. Furthermore, conditional logic, dynamic outputs and environment-specific behavior can all be scripted.
For auditability and compliance, every step in the promotion sequence is version-controlled, traceable and observable in one place. Org-specific compliance requirements (audit logs, change tickets, evidence records) become part of the environment promotion contract rather than a separate manual process.
Today’s announcement comes on the heels of Akuity celebrating 5 years of growth with record 2025 results, surpassing 100 customers and 43 million deployments fueled by AI demand.
About Akuity
Akuity is the provider of the leading software delivery platform for enterprise-ready delivery, continuous promotion and AI-powered intelligence for industry leaders. Akuity was founded by the original creators of Argo CD and Kargo; the team has experience running tens of thousands of applications at scale with multi-billion dollar impact. Akuity is based in Sunnyvale, CA.
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