News
Here’s a couple of recent articles that caught our attention this week:
Getting Backstage in front of a shifting dev experience [podcast]
Pia Nilsson, GM for Backstage and Head of Developer Experience at Spotify, was interviewed on The Stack Overflow Blog to discuss the organic growth and widespread adoption of Backstage, as well as the impact of AI on developer experience. As of September 2025, Backstage boasts over 3,400 known adopters, including numerous Fortune 500 companies like Airbnb, Booking.com, H&M, Toyota, and Lego. Nilsson highlighted how Spotify approaches platform engineering and standardization to help teams address specific needs, emphasizing Backstage’s role in reducing friction, cognitive overhead, and operational toil for developers. The discussion also touched upon the future evolution of the developer experience, particularly with the integration of AI-driven workflows.
Backstage, a Mid-Year Snapshot - Platform Engineering
A mid-year snapshot from Platform Engineering in September 2025 positions Backstage as the “gravitational center” of the Internal Developer Portal (IDP) conversation, having evolved significantly since its open-sourcing. The article notes that Backstage, now at version 1.42.5, is actively maintained under the CNCF and adopted by over 270 organizations (Editors note: It’s more like 3,400). This article provides a good overview of the state of the IDP ecosystem in 2025.
Backstage Changelog
A quick look at changes that have been merged into Backstage in the past week.
Features
- Add CLI template to create new catalog entity provider modules. #31459 by @Rugvip, merged 1 day ago
- Use app title in the auth consent screen. #31475 by @drodil, merged 2 days ago
- Update Postgres policy to support version 18 with tests on 18 and 14. #31453 by @awanlin, merged 4 days ago
- Add eslint rule that blocks importing Backstage UI CSS in plugins to keep styles consistent.
#31463 by @Rugvip, merged 5 days ago
Bug Fixes
- Fix TechDocs page rerender on each subpage navigation high activity. Before https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/99566977-052f-4aca-bc0f-cedb18631ce8 After https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bbbcf127-30d3-4785-a53c-6e9b4c64994d #31447 by @GabDug, merged 2 days ago
- Fix TechDocs CLI missing styles in version 1.10.0. Before
After
#31456 by @GabDug, merged 5 days ago
- Update email notifications backend to SES v2 to avoid nodemailer v7 errors. #31458 by @drodil, merged 2 days ago
- Make BitbucketUrlReader use the provided token. #31360 by @RedlineTriad, merged 6 days ago
- Fix Backstage UI CSS layer order so base and tokens apply before components. #31448 by @cdedreuille, merged 5 days ago
- Set default font smoothing in Backstage UI for clearer text. #31444 by @cdedreuille, merged 6 days ago
- Import Backstage UI CSS in index.ts to ensure styles load. #31449 by @vinzscam, merged 1 day ago
Improvements
- Soften task worker starting log text to avoid confusion about actual task start. #31460 by @freben, merged 2 days ago
- Allow running the example app with Docker using Postgres OpenSearch Redis for local dev. #31107 by @drodil, merged 2 days ago
Documentation
- Improve Backstage UI installation docs to show how to add the global theme and use components.
#31471 by @cdedreuille, merged 2 days ago
- Update mainline release publishing docs to remove steps that are now automated. #31443 by @camilaibs, merged 6 days ago
- Add blog post Get ready for Backstage ContribFest at KubeCon. #31440 by @awanlin, merged 6 days ago
Ecosystem Changelog
Learn which plugins have received new features, bugfixes and breaking changes in the past week.
Announcements Plugin
- Bug Fixes Add missing CSS so the dark theme renders correctly #5784 merged 6 days ago
Azure Pipelines Plugin
- Features Add option to limit clone depth for the azure repository clone action #5632 merged 5 days ago
Coder Plugin
- Features Add OAuth2 sign in to the Coder frontend Add a backend plugin to handle the OAuth2 flow #151 merged 7 days ago
Crossplane Plugin
- Features Add default exports for NFS alpha export to simplify usage merged 7 days ago
DevPod Plugin
- Features Add default exports for NFS alpha export to simplify usage merged 7 days ago
DX Plugin
- Bug Fixes Fix infinite loop in DxDataChartCard when the variables prop is missing #41 merged 2 days ago
GitHub Actions Plugin
- Changes Disable two NFS cards by default to reduce clutter Remove the optional overview card from the NFS The full view stays in the GitHub Actions tab #5678 merged 5 days ago
Kyverno Policy Reports Plugin
- Features Add default exports for NFS alpha export to simplify usage merged 7 days ago
Pipelines with Tekton Plugin
- Improvements Move status components and helper hooks into the Tekton plugin to reduce external imports #5777 merged 5 days ago
S3 Viewer Plugin
- Features Add config to show or hide bucket details for end users Default stays true to keep current behavior #183 merged 1 day ago
Scaffolder Utility Actions Plugin
- Bug Fixes Fix YAML merge when a file starts with a top level block comment #2070 merged 2 days ago
ScaleOps Plugin
- Features Add default exports for NFS alpha export to simplify usage merged 7 days ago
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