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Backstage Plugins

Frontend Architecture

This Backstage app uses the new frontend system. Frontend plugins are registered in the app feature list in backstage/packages/app/src/App.tsx using alpha plugin exports and createFrontendModule overrides where needed.

Plugin Databases

The following plugins need databases. The databases are created by Terraform in the deployment directory for dev and prod. It is important to ensure that when adding a plugin that expects a database, that the database is created, otherwise the deployment will fail.

The databases are:

  • backstage_plugin_app
  • backstage_plugin_auth
  • backstage_plugin_catalog
  • backstage_plugin_scaffolder
  • backstage_plugin_search
  • backstage_plugin_proxy
  • backstage_plugin_techdocs
  • backstage_plugin_permission
  • backstage_plugin_kubernetes

Plugins Installed and Configured

Core Backstage Plugins

The following first-party Backstage plugins are enabled in this instance:

  • Kubernetes: Shows Kubernetes resources for annotated catalog entities.
  • TechDocs: Builds and renders technical documentation for catalog entities.
  • Catalog Graph: Displays software catalog relationships as a graph.
  • API Docs: Renders API definitions and explorer pages.
  • Scaffolder: Provides software templates and self-service creation flows.
  • Search: Indexes and searches catalog, docs, and plugin content.

Third-Party Plugins

The following third-party plugins are currently installed in this repository.

Backstage Community Plugins

  • Copilot: Adds the GitHub Copilot page and backend integration for Copilot in Backstage.
  • GitHub Actions: Adds GitHub Actions workflow history to the CI/CD tab for entities with a github.com/project-slug annotation.
  • GitHub Pull Requests Board: Adds pull request views for teams and components.
  • Tech Radar: Renders the engineering tech radar using plugin-configs/tech-radar.json.
  • Scaffolder Backend Annotator Module: Adds scaffolder backend support for writing annotations during template execution.
  • Tech Radar Backend: Serves backend support for the Tech Radar plugin.

PagerDuty Plugins

  • PagerDuty: Adds entity cards and integrations for PagerDuty services and incidents.
  • PagerDuty Entity Processor: Enriches catalog entities with PagerDuty metadata.
  • PagerDuty Scaffolder Actions: Adds PagerDuty-related actions to software templates.

Entities can be linked to PagerDuty with annotations such as:

annotations:
  pagerduty.com/integration-key: [INTEGRATION-KEY]

or:

annotations:
  pagerduty.com/service-id: [SERVICE-ID]

Roadie Plugins and Modules

  • HTTP Request Field for Scaffolder: Adds a custom scaffolder field that can load values from HTTP APIs.
  • HTTP Request Scaffolder Backend Module: Adds backend support for Roadie HTTP request scaffolder actions.
  • Scaffolder Utils Module: Adds helper utilities used by Roadie scaffolder actions.

Spotify Plugins

  • Insights: Collects and visualizes Backstage adoption and usage analytics.
  • Insights Analytics Module: Sends analytics events to Spotify Insights.
  • RBAC: Provides a UI and backend policy model for role-based access control.
  • RBAC Permission Backend Module: Connects RBAC policy data into the Backstage permission framework.
  • Skill Exchange: Provides an internal marketplace for mentorship, events, and skills discovery.
  • Skill Exchange Search Backend Module: Indexes Skill Exchange content into Backstage search.
  • Soundcheck: Adds scorecards, checks, and entity health views to Backstage.
  • Soundcheck Backend: Runs Soundcheck checks and serves Soundcheck APIs.
  • Soundcheck GitHub Backend Module: Collects GitHub facts for Soundcheck.
  • Soundcheck HTTP Backend Module: Collects HTTP-based facts for Soundcheck.
  • Soundcheck SCM Backend Module: Collects SCM facts for Soundcheck.

TechDocs Addons

  • Mermaid TechDocs Addon: Renders Mermaid diagrams inside TechDocs pages.

Plugin-Specific Notes

Kubernetes Plugin

This plugin is enabled and configured to show the Kubernetes tab on the entity page. It is enabled on a component by adding these annotations to the component's catalog-info.yaml file:

annotations:
  backstage.io/kubernetes-id: backstage
  backstage.io/kubernetes-namespace: backstage

GitHub Actions Plugin

This plugin is visible through the CI/CD tab on the entity page. It is enabled on a component by adding this annotation:

annotations:
  github.com/project-slug: "org/sample-service"

Catalog Import

Catalog Import is enabled and available in the app through the catalog import frontend plugin.

Tech Radar

To edit the radar contents, update plugin-configs/tech-radar.json.

Skill Exchange

Skills are managed through plugin-configs/default-lists.yaml.

Soundcheck

Soundcheck is configured to provide entity scorecards and related health views. Slack, GitHub, HTTP, and SCM fact collection modules are installed in the backend.

Removed Plugins

  • Google Cloud Build: This plugin has been removed from the app and is no longer in use.

todo

Configuration as Data (kpt)