First, install the @backstage/plugin-notifications-backend and @backstage/plugin-notifications-node packages. See the documentation for installation instructions.

To add the notifications main menu, add the following to your 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 to packages/app/src/App.tsx:

import { NotificationsPage } from '@backstage/plugin-notifications';

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

Real-time notifications

To be able to get real-time notifications to the UI without need for the user to refresh the page, you also need to add @backstage/plugin-signals package to your installation.