EPIC Goal

Deprecate RHDH 1.8/1.9 proprietary MCP plugin implementations where upstream Backstage MCP plugins now provide equivalent functionality, and switch RHDH 1.10+ to ship/enable the upstream plugins instead—reducing maintenance burden while preserving older releases.

Background/Feature Origin

• RHDH 1.8 shipped a set of MCP plugins that were proprietary because upstream equivalents did not exist (or lacked required capabilities).
• Upstream Backstage has since introduced MCP plugins that overlap with our downstream implementations.
• We need an intentional migration plan that avoids breaking customers and avoids retroactively changing shipped content for 1.8/1.9 releases.

Why is this important?

• Reduce technical debt by removing duplicated downstream forks.
• Align to “Upstream First” so future enhancements flow into community-supported plugins.

User Scenarios

Dependencies (internal and external)

• External (Upstream Backstage):

• • Feature parity of relevant upstream MCP plugins (may require upstream PRs for gaps).
  • PRs: https://github.com/backstage/backstage/pull/31380 and https://github.com/backstage/backstage/pull/31010 
  • Upstream documentation availability/accuracy for the MCP plugins we will ship.
• rhdh-plugin-export-overlays changes to stop exporting deprecated 1.8/1.9 MCP plugins for 1.10+.

Acceptance Criteria

• Spike: Identify which MCP tools/plugins of ours can be replaced by upstream, which depend on upstream PRs, etc
  • Replaceable now (upstream equivalent exists with parity)
  • Replaceable with upstream dependency (requires upstream PR(s) and/or release)
  • Not replaceable yet (no upstream path identified; explicitly justified)
• Deprecate MCP plugins that overlap with upstream and replace with upstream
  • legacy plugins are removed from rhdh-plugin-export-overlays for 1.10
  • upstream equivalents are added/used instead
  • corresponding marketplace entries are removed/updated so 1.10+ surfaces the upstream plugin(s)

Release Enablement/Demo - Provide necessary release enablement details
and documents

DEV - Upstream code and tests merged: <link to meaningful PR or GitHub
Issue>

DEV - Upstream documentation merged: <link to meaningful PR or GitHub
Issue>

DEV - Downstream build attached to advisory: <link to errata>

QE - Test plans in Playwright: <link or reference to playwright>

QE - Automated tests merged: <link or reference to automated tests>

DOC - Downstream documentation merged: <link to meaningful PR>