backstage/plugins/techdocs-node

@backstage/plugin-techdocs-node

Common node.js functionalities for TechDocs, to be shared between techdocs-backend plugin and techdocs-cli

This package is used by techdocs-backend to serve docs from different types of publishers (Google GCS, Local, etc.). It is also used to build docs and publish them to storage, by both techdocs-backend and techdocs-cli.

Usage

Create a preparer instance from the preparers available at which takes an Entity instance. Run the docs generator on the prepared directory. Publish the generated directory files to a storage of your choice.

Example:

async () => {
  const preparedDir = await preparer.prepare(entity);

  const parsedLocationAnnotation = getLocationForEntity(entity);
  const { resultDir } = await generator.run({
    directory: preparedDir,
    dockerClient: dockerClient,
    parsedLocationAnnotation,
  });

  await publisher.publish({
    entity: entity,
    directory: resultDir,
  });
};

Features

Currently the build process is split up in these three stages.

• Preparers
• Generators
• Publishers

Preparers read your entity data and creates a working directory with your documentation source code. For example if you have set your backstage.io/techdocs-ref to url:https://github.com/backstage/backstage.git it will clone that repository to a temp folder and pass that on to the generator.

Generators takes the prepared source and runs the techdocs-container on it. It then passes on the output folder of that build to the publisher.

Publishers gets a folder path from the generator and publish it to your storage solution. Read documentation to know more about configuring storage solutions. http://backstage.io/docs/features/techdocs/configuration

Any of these can be extended. We want to extend our support to most of the storage providers (Publishers) and source code host providers (Preparers).