backstage/plugins/explore-backend

explore-backend

The explore-backend plugin provides a backend service for the Explore plugin. This allows your organizations tools to be surfaced in the Explore plugin through an API. It also provides a search collator to make it possible to search for these tools.

Getting started

Install the Package

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

Adding the plugin to your packages/backend

You'll need to add the plugin to the router in your backend package. You can do this by creating a file called packages/backend/src/plugins/explore.ts

import {
  createRouter,
  StaticExploreToolProvider,
} from '@backstage/plugin-explore-backend';
import { Router } from 'express';
import { PluginEnvironment } from '../types';
import { exploreTools } from '../path/to/your/exploreTools';

export default async function createPlugin(
  env: PluginEnvironment,
): Promise<Router> {
  return await createRouter({
    logger: env.logger,
    toolProvider: StaticExploreToolProvider.fromData(exploreTools),
  });
}

With the explore.ts router setup in place, add the router to packages/backend/src/index.ts:

+import explore from './plugins/explore';

async function main() {
  ...
  const createEnv = makeCreateEnv(config);

  const catalogEnv = useHotMemoize(module, () => createEnv('catalog'));
+  const exploreEnv = useHotMemoize(module, () => createEnv('explore'));

  const apiRouter = Router();
+  apiRouter.use('/explore', await explore(exploreEnv));
  ...
  apiRouter.use(notFoundHandler());

Wire up Search Indexing

To index explore tools you will need to register the search collator in the packages/backend/src/plugins/search.ts file.

+import { ToolDocumentCollatorFactory } from '@backstage/plugin-explore-backend';

async function createSearchEngine(
  env: PluginEnvironment,
): Promise<SearchEngine> {
  ...
+  indexBuilder.addCollator({
+    schedule,
+    factory: ToolDocumentCollatorFactory.fromConfig(env.config, {
+      discovery: env.discovery,
+      logger: env.logger,
+    }),
+  });
  ...
}

Wire up the Frontend

See the explore plugin README for more information.