Configuring App with plugins

Audience: Developers

Note

Backstage plugins are primarily written using TypeScript, Node.js and React. Having an understanding of these technologies will be beneficial on your journey to customizing Backstage!

Summary

Backstage plugins customize the app for your needs. There is a plugin directory with plugins for many common infrastructure needs - CI/CD, monitoring, auditing, and more.

Adding existing plugins to your app

The following steps assume that you have created a Backstage app and want to add an existing plugin to it.

You can find many wonderful plugins out there for Backstage, for example through the Community Plugins Repository and the Backstage Plugin Directory.

Adding plugins to your Backstage app is generally a simple process, and ideally each plugin will come with its own documentation on how to install and configure it. In this example we will add the Tech Radar plugin to our Backstage app.

1. Add the plugin's npm package to the repo:

   From your Backstage root directory

   yarn --cwd packages/app add @backstage-community/plugin-tech-radar

   Note the plugin is added to the app package, rather than the root package.json. Backstage Apps are set up as monorepos with Yarn workspaces. Frontend UI Plugins are generally added to the app folder, while Backend Plugins are added to the backend folder. In the example above, the plugin is added to the app package because we are adding the frontend plugin.

2. Now, modify your app routes to include the Router component exported from the tech radar, for example:

   packages/app/src/App.tsx

   import { TechRadarPage } from '@backstage-community/plugin-tech-radar';
   
   const routes = (
     <FlatRoutes>
       <Route
         path="/tech-radar"
         element={<TechRadarPage width={1500} height={800} />}
       />
     </FlatRoutes>
   );

   This is just one example, and if you'd like to continue adding the Tech Radar plugin you can do so by going here, keep in mind each Backstage instance may integrate content or cards to suit their needs on different pages, tabs, etc. In addition, while some plugins such as this example are designed to be used in a stand-alone fashion, others may be intended to annotate or support specific software catalog entities and would be added elsewhere in the app.

Adding a plugin page to the Sidebar

In a standard Backstage app created with @backstage/create-app, the sidebar is managed inside packages/app/src/components/Root/Root.tsx. The file exports the entire Sidebar element of your app, which you can extend with additional entries by adding new SidebarItem elements.

For example, if you install the api-docs plugin, a matching SidebarItem could be something like this:

packages/app/src/components/Root/Root.tsx

// Import icon from Material UI
import ExtensionIcon from '@material-ui/icons/Extension';

// ... inside the AppSidebar component
<SidebarItem icon={ExtensionIcon} to="api-docs" text="APIs" />;

You can also use your own SVGs directly as icon components. Just make sure they are sized according to the Material UI's SvgIcon default of 24x24px, and set the extension to .icon.svg. For example:

import InternalToolIcon from './internal-tool.icon.svg';

On mobile devices the Sidebar is displayed at the bottom of the screen. For customizing the experience you can group SidebarItems in a SidebarGroup (Example 1) or create a SidebarGroup with a link (Example 2). All SidebarGroups are displayed in the bottom navigation with an icon.

// Example 1
<SidebarGroup icon={<MenuIcon />} label="Menu">
  ...
  <SidebarItem icon={ExtensionIcon} to="api-docs" text="APIs" />
  ...
<SidebarGroup />

// Example 2
<SidebarGroup label="Search" icon={<SearchIcon />} to="/search">
  ...
  <SidebarItem icon={ExtensionIcon} to="api-docs" text="APIs" />
  ...
<SidebarGroup />

If no SidebarGroup is provided a default menu will display the Sidebar content.