Pipeline use Django Storage to read, save and delete files, by default it use an improved StaticFilesStorage.
You can provide your own via PIPELINE_STORAGE :
PIPELINE_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
Pipeline is providing a storage for staticfiles app, to use it configure STATICFILES_STORAGE like so
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'pipeline.storage.PipelineStorage'
And if you want versioning use
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'pipeline.storage.PipelineCachedStorage'
Pipeline is also providing a storage that play nicely with staticfiles app particularly for development :
PIPELINE_STORAGE = 'pipeline.storage.PipelineFinderStorage'