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docs: improve cross-references for installing plugins page

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Update the Building Apps overview to reference the new installing
plugins page instead of duplicating feature discovery content. Add
cross-references between the installing plugins page, the architecture
feature discovery docs, the plugin conversion page, and the extension
configuration page.

Signed-off-by: Patrik Oldsberg <poldsberg@gmail.com>
Made-with: Cursor
This commit is contained in:
Patrik Oldsberg
2026-03-04 12:14:48 +01:00
parent adc075f557
commit 67723818b5
3 changed files with 10 additions and 8 deletions
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docs/frontend-system/building-apps/01-index.md
+3 -7
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@@ -63,13 +63,9 @@ Visit the [built-in extensions](#customize-or-override-built-in-extensions) sect
Linking routes from different plugins requires this configuration. You can do this either through a configuration file or by coding, visit [this](https://backstage.io/docs/frontend-system/architecture/routes#binding-external-route-references) page for instructions.
### Enable feature discovery
### Install plugins
Use this setting to enable experimental feature discovery when building your app with `@backstage/cli`. With this configuration your application tries to discover and install package extensions automatically, check [here](../architecture/10-app.md#feature-discovery) for more details.
:::warning
Remember that package extensions that are not auto-discovered must be manually added to the application when creating an app. See [features](#install-features-manually) for more details.
:::
Plugins are typically installed by adding them as dependencies of your app package and relying on package discovery to automatically detect them. For details on how this works, including how to manually install plugins or control which packages are discovered, see [Installing Plugins](./05-installing-plugins.md).
### Configure extensions individually
@@ -83,7 +79,7 @@ Previously you would customize the application routes, components, apis, sidebar
### Install features manually
A manual installation is required if your packages are not discovered automatically, either because you are not using `@backstage/cli` to build your application or because the features are defined in local modules in the app package. In order to manually install a feature, you must import it and pass it to the `createApp` function:
Most plugins are installed automatically through [package discovery](./05-installing-plugins.md#package-discovery). Manual installation is needed if your packages are not discovered automatically, either because you are not using `@backstage/cli` to build your application or because the features are defined in local modules in the app package. In order to manually install a feature, you must import it and pass it to the `createApp` function:
```tsx title="packages/app/src/App.tsx"
import { createApp } from '@backstage/frontend-defaults';
docs/frontend-system/building-apps/05-installing-plugins.md
+5 -1
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@@ -43,7 +43,9 @@ app:
- '@backstage/plugin-catalog'
```
Package discovery requires that your app is built using the `@backstage/cli`, which is the default for all Backstage apps.
Package discovery requires that your app is built using the `@backstage/cli`, which is the default for all Backstage apps. Note that you do not need to exclude packages that you also install manually in code, since plugin instances are deduplicated by the app.
For more details on how package discovery works under the hood, see the [Feature Discovery](../architecture/10-app.md#feature-discovery) architecture documentation.
## Manual installation
@@ -62,6 +64,8 @@ export default app.createRoot();
Manual installation may also be necessary if you need to control the ordering of plugins, for example when customizing route priorities. Since manually installed plugins are deduplicated against automatically discovered ones, you can safely install a plugin both manually and through package discovery without causing conflicts.
If you need to use a 3rd-party plugin that does not yet support the new frontend system, you can use the conversion utilities from `@backstage/core-compat-api` to wrap it. See [Converting 3rd-party Plugins](./06-plugin-conversion.md) for details.
## Configuring installed plugins
Once a plugin is installed, you can configure its extensions through the `app.extensions` section of your `app-config.yaml`. See [Configuring Extensions](./02-configuring-extensions.md) for details.