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Getting Started

The Backstage Notifications System provides a way for plugins and external services to send notifications to Backstage users. These notifications are displayed in the dedicated page of the Backstage frontend UI or by frontend plugins per specific scenarios. Additionally, notifications can be sent to external channels (like email) via "processors" implemented within plugins.

Notifications can be optionally extended with the signals plugin, which provides a push mechanism to ensure users receive notifications immediately.

Upgrade to the latest version of Backstage​

To ensure your version of Backstage has all the latest notifications and signals related functionality, it’s important to upgrade to the latest version. The Backstage upgrade helper is a great tool to help ensure that you’ve made all the necessary changes during the upgrade!

About notifications​

Notifications are messages sent to either individual users or groups. They are not intended for inter-process communication of any kind.

There are two basic types of notifications:

  • Broadcast: Messages sent to all users of Backstage.
  • Entity: Messages delivered to specific listed entities, such as Users or Groups.

Example of use-cases:

  • System-wide announcements or alerts
  • Notifications for component owners, e.g. build failures, successful deployments, new vulnerabilities
  • Notifications for individuals, e.g. updates you have subscribed to, new required training courses
  • Notifications pertaining to a particular entity in the catalog: A notification might apply to an entity and the owning team.

Installation​

The following sections will walk you through the installation of the various parts of the Backstage Notification System.

Add Notifications Backend​

First we need to add the backend package:

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/backend add @backstage/plugin-notifications-backend

Then we need to add it to our backend:

packages/backend/src/index.ts
const backend = createBackend();
// ...
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-notifications-backend'));

Add Notifications Frontend​

First we need to add the frontend package:

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/app add @backstage/plugin-notifications

To add the notifications main menu, add the following:

packages/app/src/components/Root/Root.tsx
import { NotificationsSidebarItem } from '@backstage/plugin-notifications';

<SidebarPage>
  <Sidebar>
    <SidebarGroup>
      // ...
      <NotificationsSidebarItem />
    </SidebarGroup>
  </Sidebar>
</SidebarPage>;

Also add the route to notifications:

packages/app/src/App.tsx
import { NotificationsPage } from '@backstage/plugin-notifications';

<FlatRoutes>
  // ...
  <Route path="/notifications" element={<NotificationsPage />} />
</FlatRoutes>;

Optional: Add Signals​

The use of signals is optional but improves the user experience.

Optional: Add Signals Backend​

Add signals to your backend by first adding the backend package:

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/backend add @backstage/plugin-signals-backend

Then add the signals plugin to your backend:

packages/backend/src/index.ts
const backend = createBackend();
// ...
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-signals-backend'));

Optional: Signals Frontend​

Start with adding the frontend package:

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/app add @backstage/plugin-signals

To install the plugin, add the SignalsDisplay to your app root:

packages/app/src/App.tsx
import { SignalsDisplay } from '@backstage/plugin-signals';

export default app.createRoot(
  <>
    <AlertDisplay transientTimeoutMs={2500} />
    <OAuthRequestDialog />
    <SignalsDisplay />
    <AppRouter>
      <VisitListener />
      <Root>{routes}</Root>
    </AppRouter>
  </>,
);

If the signals plugin is properly configured, it will be automatically discovered by the notifications plugin and used.

User-specific notification settings​

The notifications plugin provides a way for users to manage their notification settings. To enable this, you must add the UserNotificationSettingsCard to your frontend.

packages/app/src/App.tsx
<Route path="/settings" element={<UserSettingsPage />}>
  <SettingsLayout.Route path="/advanced" title="Advanced">
    <AdvancedSettings />
  </SettingsLayout.Route>
  <SettingsLayout.Route path="/notifications" title="Notifications">
    <UserNotificationSettingsCard
      originNames={{ 'plugin:scaffolder': 'Scaffolder' }}
    />
  </SettingsLayout.Route>
</Route>

Notification Settings

You can customize the origin names shown in the UI by passing an object where the keys are the origins and the values are the names you want to show in the UI.

Each notification processor will receive its own row in the settings page, where the user can enable or disable notifications from that processor.

Automatic notification cleanup​

Notifications are deleted automatically after a certain period of time to prevent the database from growing indefinitely and to keep the user interface clean. The default retention period is set to 1 year, meaning that notifications older than that will be deleted automatically.

The retention period can be configured by setting the notifications.retention in the app-config.yaml file.

notifications:
  retention: 1y

If the retention is set to false, notifications will not be automatically deleted.

Additional info​

An example of a backend plugin sending notifications can be found in the @backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend-module-notifications package.

Sources of the notifications and signals plugins: