diff --git a/docs/features/techdocs/architecture.md b/docs/features/techdocs/architecture.md index 53149ae4f3..2156d0dc9d 100644 --- a/docs/features/techdocs/architecture.md +++ b/docs/features/techdocs/architecture.md @@ -123,6 +123,21 @@ a cache for the generated static content. TechDocs is also currently built on MkDocs which does not allow us to generate docs per-page, so we would have to build all docs for a entity on every request. +**Q. Can you use the techdocs plugin without the techdocs-backend plugin?** + +A: `techdocs` and `techdocs-backend` plugins are designed to be used together, +like any other Backstage plugin with a frontend and its backend (catalog, +scaffolder, etc.). If you set your Backstage instance to generate docs on the +server, `techdocs-backend` will be responsible for managing the whole build +process, making sure it's scalable. It is responsible for securely communicating +with the cloud storage provider, for both fetching static generated sites and +publishing the updates. There are other planned features like an authentication +layer for users to determine whether they have the permission to view a +particular docs site. There are a handful of features which are extremely hard +to develop without a tightly integrated backend in place. Hence, supporting +`techdocs` without `techdocs-backend` is limiting and challenging for its +development. + # Future work _Ideas here are far fetched and not in the project's milestone for near future