EPIC Goal

Frontend changes are likely required as part of the requirement to utilize scaffolder templates and orchestrator workflows. The feature will lead to a new flow in which users will now trigger a scaffolder template or orchestrator workflow during import instead of creating GitHub PRs.

Background/Feature Origin

The Bulk Import plugin currently requires manual implementation to handle repository imports. Customers want to use pre-defined Backstage templates and Orchestrator workflows (not part of this Feature and Epic) that facilitate various operations, such as creating repositories across multiple Git platforms, requesting approvals, and publishing code or configurations to repositories.

By integrating the Bulk Import plugin with these existing templates and workflows, we can reduce redundancy, and enhance user efficiency. This feature aims to utilize existing infrastructure to automate and optimize bulk import operations effectively.

The current UI isn't user friendly and PM/UX asked to remove the "Added repository" page when possible.

Why is this important?

Since we will now be using templates and workflows, we will no longer need the ability to show the catalog entity that will be posted during the PR generation process.

User Scenarios

1. Upon repositories selection, the plugin must call an API to trigger the appropriate template or workflow.
2. Provide a template that handles the default behavior of adding entities
3. Documentation must be updated to explain how the platform engineer can select which template to run.

Dependencies (internal and external)

Dependency on the backend team / PRs

Acceptance Criteria

1. Bulk import can start a configured (app-config) scaffolder template
   1. This feature depends on the new backend, and needs to be configured in the app-config
   2. There is no need to configure the scaffolder template. The GitHub repository should be passed as parameters to the software template
   3. Creating GitHub PRs is still the default and should still work of course
2. New e2e tests are added for the scaffolder variant. The old tests should still work in best case.
3. Stretch goal: Redesign the Bulk import and align with latest PM/UX wishes
   1. Display the "Add repository" page by default when viewing the bulk import plugin (instead of the list of imported repos)
   2. The repository list on the "Add repository" page should show a status and a link to the latest PR or latest scaffolder task, if available
   3. Since the template does something unknown, the button text can be simplified to say "Import", rather than trying to guess if the result will add, or create a PR that must be merged before the repo is added
   4. Need to confirm if changes are needed to support repository history (does this become the repo list table, relying on status, does this get moved to a new area within the plugin, or can it be dropped?)* - don't work on this for now*
   5. Need to confirm if we're keeping the organization feature* - don't work on this for now*