Backstage Weekly 46 - OpenAPI $ref, node support, new plugins

This week’s newsletter features the latest developments on the support for OpenAPI $ref in the Catalog, the recently added node support policy, two new integration plugins, and Backstage’s vacation schedule.

Initial support for OpenAPI $ref in the Catalog

It is common to write OpenAPI specifications in multiple files using $ref to reuse snippets throughout the definition. There’s an open RFC to discuss how Backstage processors should handle these references.

Last week, mfrinnstrom started to pave the way by releasing a new plugin extension. plugin-catalog-backend-module-openapi takes your split OpenAPI definition, bundles it using a UrlReader, and stores it as a single specification.

Check out the plugin’s README for more information.

All Roadie customers are already running on Backstage 1.3.0. Get the best out of Backstage without wasting time on upgrades. Try out managed Backstage for free!

Node support policy

Thanks to Rugvip, there’s now an explicit node version support schedule.

Right now, Backstage supports v14 and v16 but that will change in July (3 months before v18 becomes the Active LTS in October). By then, Backstage will support v16 and v18.

Read more about what is implied in “node support”. Also, check out the Node version schedule.

New integration plugins: Rootly and Humanitec

Since Backstage releases on stable 1.x versions, companies keep providing integrations with the platform. This week, we saw an integration by Rootly and Humanitec.

Rootly is a slack-based incident manager. With their integration, you can view incidents in your Backstage instance. Check out Rootly plugin’s REAME for installation instructions.

Humanitec is an internal developer platform service. With their integration, you can see shows information about environments, workloads and resources on an entity page. Check out Humanitec plugin’s README for installation instructions.

Vacation schedule

Some maintainers will be enjoying some well deserved vacations from July 7th through August 8th, so you can expect the project to move slower and limited support.

I want to welcome William Hill, Cho Tot, Clarivate, Funding Circle, the most recent adopters! Welcome to the community! Hope to meet y’all soon.

Cheers,

Jorge L