This feature aims to provide an MVP of homepage customization capabilities within Red Hat Developer Hub (RHDH), offering support for a universal homepage configured in a GitOps friendly way by an org admin, which end users can further customize. The goal is to enhance user engagement and streamline workflows by delivering relevant and personalized content. 

Additional changes or support for new homepage cards may be added in future versions.

Goals

• Customizable org default: Enable platform engineers to define a single default homepage for their end users, which is defined in a gitops friendly way to promote through environments.
• User Personalization: Empower individual users to personalize their homepages through a user-friendly interface, allowing them to add, remove, rearrange, and resize dynamic plugin cards to suit their workflow and preferences.
• Persistent Customizations: Investigate if configurations and individual user customizations can be saved, persist across sessions and devices, and are reflected correctly upon login without adding a backend plugin for storage.
• Improved User Experience: Address current limitations in homepage configuration by providing a seamless, customizable interface that supports relevant content delivery based on user roles and personal settings.

Requirements

• Platform Engineer Capabilities:

• • Create new default homepage for all users via a config file, learning from the out-of-the-box option.
  • Select from a list of available and enabled dynamic plugins within RHDH for inclusion in a homepage layout.
  • Configure the layout and positioning of plugin cards on the default homepage, similar to entity page configurations.

• End-User Capabilities:

• • View a default homepage configured by platform engineers upon login.
  • Remove existing cards from their personal homepage.
  • Add new cards from a list of available dynamic plugins (respecting RBAC).
  • Rearrange and resize the position of cards on their homepage via drag-and-drop.
  • Save and persist all personal homepage modifications across sessions and devices.
  • Revert their end-user customization back to the default homepage their org (PEs) provides.
  • The system must gracefully handle concurrent modifications to prevent data inconsistencies.

Out of Scope

• Support for multiple personas in the first version (will be added in the future).
• Dedicated backend storage. If backstage user settings can't persist data, we should utilize local storage for MVP.
• Creation of new cards. Additional cards may be created for future releases, but are out of scope for now.
• Mapping a particular persona to more than one homepage. 

Considerations

• Technical Implementation: Investigate existing Backstage.io homepage configuration options (e.g., drag-and-drop functionality) to determine if they can be reused and enhanced to meet project requirements (e.g., data persistence, broader plugin selection) or if a new development approach is necessary.
• Documentation: Provide comprehensive documentation for both platform engineers (on creating and configuring persona-specific homepages with examples) and end-users (on customizing their homepage and reverting settings).

This combined feature description addresses the core needs outlined in the original Jira tickets: RHDHPLAN-10, RHDHPLAN-12, and RHDHPLAN-11