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Collators

Backstage includes 2 collators out of the box for the Catalog and TechDocs. There's also some from the Backstage Community too!

Catalog​

The Catalog collator will index all the Entities in your Catalog. It is installed by default but if you need to add it manually here's how.

First we add the plugin into your backend app:

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/backend add @backstage/plugin-search-backend-module-catalog

Then add the following line:

packages/backend/src/index.ts
const backend = createBackend();

// Other plugins...

// search plugin
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-search-backend'));

backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-search-backend-module-catalog'));

backend.start();

Configuring the Catalog Collator​

The default schedule for the Catalog Collator is to run every 10 minutes, you can provide your own schedule by adding it to your config:

search:
  collators:
    catalog:
      schedule: # same options as in SchedulerServiceTaskScheduleDefinition
        # supports cron, ISO duration, "human duration" as used in code
        initialDelay: { seconds: 90 }
        # supports cron, ISO duration, "human duration" as used in code
        frequency: { hours: 6 }
        # supports ISO duration, "human duration" as used in code
        timeout: { minutes: 3 }

TechDocs​

The TechDocs collator will index all the TechDocs in your Catalog. It is installed by default but if you need to add it manually here's how.

First we add the plugin into your backend app:

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/backend add @backstage/plugin-search-backend-module-techdocs

Then add the following line:

packages/backend/src/index.ts
const backend = createBackend();

// Other plugins...

// search plugin
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-search-backend'));

backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-search-backend-module-techdocs'));

backend.start();

Configuring the TechDocs Collator​

The default schedule for the TechDocs Collator is to run every 10 minutes, you can provide your own schedule by adding it to your config:

search:
  collators:
    techdocs:
      schedule: # same options as in SchedulerServiceTaskScheduleDefinition
        # supports cron, ISO duration, "human duration" as used in code
        initialDelay: { seconds: 90 }
        # supports cron, ISO duration, "human duration" as used in code
        frequency: { hours: 6 }
        # supports ISO duration, "human duration" as used in code
        timeout: { minutes: 3 }

Community Collators​

Here are some of the known Search Collators available in from the Backstage Community:

Custom Collators​

To create your own collators/decorators modules, please use the searchModuleCatalogCollator as an example, we recommend that modules are separated by plugin packages (e.g. search-backend-module-<plugin-id>). You can also find the available search engines and collator/decorator modules documentation in the Alpha API reports.