• the goal right now is to have this documented internally in google documents in this folder https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YGZduaDrKD44DtadbXP36rZp7VXv7zaR

• it will be documented downstream once dynamic plugins reach GA

Goals

Provide a guide explaining how to create Backstage plugins with our best practices and software templates to get started quickly with frontend plugin and backend plugin.

This will be used for any teams within Red Hat who would like to create plugins, customers who need to create custom plugin for homegrown internal solutions and any one in the community (and partners) that need to create plugins.

Documentation

• Frontend plugin
  • Different types of displays (page, main card, overview card, user settings, admin page)
  • How to add permission (RBAC)
  • How to add localization
  • How to add analytics
  • UX Best practices and consistent experience
• Backend plugin
  • How to secure the APIs
  • How to generate the OpenAPIs specs
  • How to persist data in the Backstage database (done in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GMiBBAYxqTvrKRtVR39gkWE8Lp2lGNunf8AczFhLgvo/edit?usp=drive_link)
• Dynamic plugin
  • Quick explanation and refer to the existing documentation
• Plugin Testing (done in https://docs.google.com/document/d/10vYfTURd7ti4gN_QOeZRYS-8M00OIdf_iuJjb9C5Tm8/edit?usp=drive_link)

Software Templates

Once the guide/documentation is complete, we should provide 2 software templates for frontend plugin and backend plugin containing all the best practices so any customers or anyone in the community can start a new plugin with a few clicks in seconds.