Backstage Weekly 90 - New Relic plugin, extra actions examples

Hi y’all! It’s lillördag and I’ve got some good stuff for you:

• A New Relic Browser plugin is now available!
• Built-in Scaffolder actions are getting improved usage examples
• Article: Ideas to secure your software supply chain with Backstage

New Relic analytics for your Backstage instance

So far, the Backstage Analytics plugin had support only for Google Analytics (including GA4). But some organizations can’t rely on GA for various reasons. Thanks to jmezach, there’s now an analytics module that works with New Relic Browser.

You’ll be able to track your instance’s usage by reporting events to New Relic Browser. The plugin also supports sending a hashed User ID generated by NewRelicBrowser.

The plugin will be released along Backstage 1.17, expected on August 15th. But you can already get started with the plugin following the detailed README.

Want to start building on top of Backstage? Get a Roadie Backstage instance so you can start shipping features into your IDP without having to manage an instance. Get a demo now!

Article: Software Supply Chains and Backstage

Backstage can be really useful to drive the adoption of security practices along your development lifecycle. In my new article for The New Stack, I explain how the Catalog, the Scaffolder, and Tech Insights can help assess and push forward your security strategy all the way to production.

Of course, the team at VMWare Tanzu Application Platform (TAP) is ahead of the game when it comes to using Backstage to secure the supply chain. From what I understand, their Backstage-based offering is optimized for this use case.

Robert Jensen’s—Lead Solution Engineer at VMware—talk during a meetup in Aarhus (slides here) was inspiring to me in this regard.

New examples for the built-in Scaffolder actions

The docs for installed actions in your Backstage instance are handy when writing software templates. You can find them under /create/actions and review input and output parameters, as well as usage examples in some cases.

Roadie’s engineer Brian Fletcher recently added a bunch of examples to make it easier to understand how to use the built-in actions.

This additional documentation will be shipped with Backstage 1.17, scheduled for next week.