backstage/plugins/devtools-backend

DevTools Backend

Welcome to the DevTools backend plugin! This plugin provides data for the DevTools frontend features.

Setup

Here's how to get the DevTools Backend up and running:

1. First we need to add the @backstage/plugin-devtools-backend package to your backend:

   # From the Backstage root directory
   yarn add --cwd packages/backend @backstage/plugin-devtools-backend
   

2. Then we will create a new file named packages/backend/src/plugins/devtools.ts, and add the following to it:

   import { createRouter } from '@backstage/plugin-devtools-backend';
   import { Router } from 'express';
   import type { PluginEnvironment } from '../types';
   
   export default function createPlugin(
     env: PluginEnvironment,
   ): Promise<Router> {
     return createRouter({
       logger: env.logger,
       config: env.config,
       permissions: env.permissions,
     });
   }
   

3. Next we wire this into the overall backend router, edit packages/backend/src/index.ts:

   import devTools from './plugins/devtools';
   // ...
   async function main() {
     // ...
     // Add this line under the other lines that follow the useHotMemoize pattern
     const devToolsEnv = useHotMemoize(module, () => createEnv('devtools'));
     // ...
     // Insert this line under the other lines that add their routers to apiRouter in the same way
     apiRouter.use('/devtools', await devTools(devToolsEnv));
   

4. Now run yarn start-backend from the repo root

5. Finally open http://localhost:7007/api/devtools/health in a browser and it should return {"status":"ok"}

New Backend System

The DevTools backend plugin has alpha support for the new backend system, here's how you can set that up:

In your packages/backend/src/index.ts make the following changes:

  import { createBackend } from '@backstage/backend-defaults';
  import { appPlugin } from '@backstage/plugin-app-backend';
  import { catalogPlugin } from '@backstage/plugin-catalog-backend';
  import {
    scaffolderPlugin,
    catalogModuleTemplateKind,
  } from '@backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend';
+ import { devtoolsPlugin } from '@backstage/plugin-devtools-backend/alpha';

  const backend = createBackend();

  backend.add(appPlugin());
  backend.add(catalogPlugin());
  backend.add(catalogModuleTemplateKind());
  backend.add(scaffolderPlugin());

+ backend.add(devtoolsPlugin());

  backend.start();

Links

• Frontend part of the plugin
• The Backstage homepage