Our vision for Backstage is for it to become the trusted standard toolbox (read: UX layer) for the open source infrastructure landscape. Think of it like Kubernetes for developer experience. We realize this is an ambitious goal. We can’t do it alone.
Therefore we want to create strong community of contributors -- all working together to create the kind of delightful experience that our developers deserve.
Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given. ❤️
Backstage is released under the Apache 2.0 License, and original creations contributed to this repo are accepted under the same license.
No one likes bugs. Report bugs as an issue here.
Look through the GitHub issues for bugs, good first issues or help wanted.
The value of Backstage grows with every new plugin that gets added. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was a plugin for every infrastructure project out there? We think so. And we would love your help.
A great reference example of a plugin can be found on our blog (thanks @fastfrwrd!)
What kind of plugins should/could be created? Some inspiration from the 120+ plugins that we have developed inside Spotify can be found here, but we will keep a running list of suggestions labeled with [plugin].
If you start developing a plugin that you aim to release as open source, we suggest that you create a new Issue. This helps the community know what plugins are in development.
You can also use this process if you have an idea for a good plugin but you hope that someone else will pick up the work.
Since there is such a large landscape of possible development, build, and deployment environments, we welcome community contributions in these areas in the /contrib folder of the project. This is an excellent place to put things that help out the community at large, but which may not fit within the scope of the core product to support natively. Here, you will find Helm charts, alternative Docker images, and much more.
The current documentation is very limited. Help us make the /docs folder come alive.
We think the best way to ensure different plugins provide a consistent experience is through a solid set of reusable UI/UX components. Backstage uses Storybook.
Either help us create new components or improve stories for the existing ones (look for files with *.stories.tsx).
The best way to send feedback is to file an issue.
If you are proposing a feature:
- Explain in detail how it would work.
- Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
- Use appropriate labels
- Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)
Have you started using Backstage? Adding your company to ADOPTERS really helps the project.
So...feel ready to jump in? Let's do this. 👏🏻💯
Start by reading our Getting Started for Contributors page to get yourself setup with a fresh copy of Backstage ready for your contributions. If you need help, just jump into our Discord chatroom.
All code is formatted with prettier using the configuration in the repo. If possible we recommend configuring your editor to format automatically, but you can also use the yarn prettier --write <file> command to format files.
A consistent coding style is included via EditorConfig with the file .editorconfig at the root of the repo. Depending on your editor of choice, it will either support it out of the box or you can download a plugin for the config to be applied.
If you're contributing to the backend or CLI tooling, be mindful of cross-platform support. This blog post is a good guide of what to keep in mind when writing cross-platform NodeJS.
Also be sure to skim through our ADRs to see if they cover what you're working on. In particular ADR006: Avoid React.FC and React.SFC is one to look out for.
If there are any updates in markdown file please make sure to run yarn run lint:docs. Though it is checked on lint-staged. It is required to install vale separately and make sure it is accessed by global command.
As with other CNCF projects, Backstage has adopted a Developers Certificate of Origin (DCO). A DCO is a lightweight way for a developer to certify that they wrote or otherwise have the right to submit code or documentation to a project.
To certify the code you submit to the repository you'll need to add a Signed-off-by line to your commits.
$ git commit -s -m 'Awesome commit message'
Which will look something like the following in the repo;
Awesome commit message
Signed-off-by: Jane Smith <jane.smith@example.com>
- In case you forgot to add it to the most recent commit, use
git commit --amend --signoff - In case you forgot to add it to the last N commits in your branch, use
git rebase --signoff HEAD~Nand replace N with the number of new commits you created in your branch. - If you have a very deep branch with a lot of commits, run
git rebase -i --signoff $(git merge-base -a master HEAD), double check to make sense of the commits (keep all lines aspick) and save and close the editor. This should bulk sign all the commits in your PR. Do be careful though. If you have a complex flow with a lot of branching and re-merging of work branches and stuff, merge-base may not be the right solution for you.
Note: If you have already pushed you branch to a remote, you might have to force push: git push -f after the rebase.
If you are using the GitHub Desktop client, you need to manually add the Signed-off-by line to the Description field on the Changes tab before committing:
Awesome description (commit message)
Signed-off-by: Jane Smith <jane.smith@example.com>
In case you forgot to add the line to your most recent commit, you can amend the commit message from the History tab before pushing your branch (GitHub Desktop 2.9 or later).
We use changesets to help us prepare releases. They help us make sure that every package affected by a change gets a proper version number and an entry in its CHANGELOG.md. To make the process of generating releases easy, it helps when contributors include changesets with their pull requests.
Any time a patch, minor, or major change aligning to Semantic Versioning is made to any published package in packages/ or plugins/, a changeset should be used. It helps to align your change to the Backstage stability index for the package you are changing, for example, when to provide additional clarity on deprecation or impacting changes which will then be included into CHANGELOGs.
In general, changesets are not needed for the documentation, build utilities, contributed samples in contrib/, or the example packages/app.
- Run
yarn changeset - Select which packages you want to include a changeset for
- Select impact of change that you're introducing, using
minorfor breaking changes andpatchotherwise. We do not usemajorchanges while packages are at version0.x. - Explain your changes in the generated changeset. See examples of well written changesets.
- Add generated changeset to Git
- Push the commit with your changeset to the branch associated with your PR
- Accept our gratitude for making the release process easier on the maintainers
For more information, checkout adding a changeset documentation in the changesets repository.
For those contributors who have earned write access to the repository, when a pull request is approved, in general we prefer the author of the PR to perform the merge themselves. This allows them to own accountability for the change and they likely know best how or when to address pending fixes or additional follow-ups. In this way, we all help contribute to the project's successful outcomes.
This project adheres to the Spotify FOSS Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to honor this code.
See SECURITY.