This is the React frontend for the default Backstage software templates. This package supplies interfaces related to showing available templates in the Backstage catalog and the workflow to create software using those templates.
This @backstage/plugin-scaffolder package comes installed by default in any
Backstage application created with npx @backstage/create-app, so installation
is not usually required.
To check if you already have the package, look under
packages/app/package.json, in the dependencies block, for
@backstage/plugin-scaffolder. The instructions below walk through restoring
the plugin, if you previously removed it.
# From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/app add @backstage/plugin-scaffolder
packages/appAdd the root page that the scaffolder plugin provides to your app. You can choose any path for the route, but we recommend the following:
// packages/app/src/App.tsx
+import { ScaffolderPage } from '@backstage/plugin-scaffolder';
<FlatRoutes>
<Route path="/catalog" element={<CatalogIndexPage />} />
<Route path="/catalog/:namespace/:kind/:name" element={<CatalogEntityPage />}>
{entityPage}
</Route>
+ <Route path="/create" element={<ScaffolderPage />} />;
...
</FlatRoutes>
The scaffolder plugin also has one external route that needs to be bound for it
to function: the registerComponent route which should link to the page where
the user can register existing software component. In a typical setup, the
register component route will be linked to the catalog-import plugin's import
page:
// packages/app/src/App.tsx
+import { scaffolderPlugin } from '@backstage/plugin-scaffolder';
+import { catalogImportPlugin } from '@backstage/plugin-catalog-import';
const app = createApp({
// ...
bindRoutes({ bind }) {
+ bind(scaffolderPlugin.externalRoutes, {
+ registerComponent: catalogImportPlugin.routes.importPage,
+ });
},
});
You may also want to add a link to the scaffolder page to your application sidebar:
// packages/app/src/components/Root/Root.tsx
+import CreateComponentIcon from '@material-ui/icons/AddCircleOutline';
export const Root = ({ children }: PropsWithChildren<{}>) => (
<SidebarPage>
<Sidebar>
+ <SidebarItem icon={CreateComponentIcon} to="create" text="Create..." />;
...
</Sidebar>
If you encounter the issue of closing EventStream
which auto-updates logs during task execution, you can enable long polling. To do so,
update your packages/app/src/apis.ts file to register a ScaffolderClient with the
useLongPollingLogs set to true. By default, it is false.
import {
createApiFactory,
discoveryApiRef,
fetchApiRef,
identityApiRef,
} from '@backstage/core-plugin-api';
import {
scaffolderApiRef,
ScaffolderClient,
} from '@backstage/plugin-scaffolder';
export const apis: AnyApiFactory[] = [
createApiFactory({
api: scaffolderApiRef,
deps: {
discoveryApi: discoveryApiRef,
identityApi: identityApiRef,
scmIntegrationsApi: scmIntegrationsApiRef,
fetchApi: fetchApiRef,
},
factory: ({ scmIntegrationsApi, discoveryApi, identityApi, fetchApi }) =>
new ScaffolderClient({
discoveryApi,
identityApi,
scmIntegrationsApi,
fetchApi,
useLongPollingLogs: true,
}),
}),
// ... other factories
This replaces the default implementation of the scaffolderApiRef.
When you develop a new template, action or new <ScaffolderFieldExtensions/>, then we recommend
to launch the plugin locally using the createDevApp of the ./dev/index.tsx file for testing/Debugging purposes
To play with it, open a terminal and run the command: yarn start within the ./plugins/scaffolder folder
NOTE: Don't forget to open a second terminal and to launch the backend or backend-next there, using yarn start and to specify the locations of the templates to play with !