Backstage Weekly 93 - i18n, shell into pod, production considerations

Hi y’all! While I was out in Galicia for a few days, incredible things happened. Let’s recap some of the big wins:

• Backstage is getting i18n!
• Shell into pods without leaving Backstage
• Roadie’s refreshed Catalog UI dropped
• New TNS article: Considerations for Backstage in Production

Backstage’s road to internationalization

Backstage is used by hundreds of teams around the globe, so it’s exciting to see i18n moving forward. After a months-long discussion, the PR with the first steps to implement i18n was merged recently.

The initial alpha i18n implementation was championed by mario-mui. The new function lets plugin authors define messages that can be then used in JSX. The feature also supports lazy loading messages.

Plugins, such as ADR, are starting to adopt translation refs. Contributing translations might be a nice way to contribute to your favorite plugins.

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!

Considerations for Backstage in Production

In my new article for The New Stack, I overview a few points that nobody tells you are part of the Backstage adoption journey.

This article could be mostly interesting for people new to Backstage. However, if you already have an up-and-running instance, I’d like to know what you think I’m missing!

Talking about The New Stack, don’t miss the latest article featuring Hellen Greul on how Spotify achieved a 99% usage of their internal development platform.

Roadie’s Catalog new UI

The Roadie team recently shipped a new Catalog page to give users more horizontal space by moving the filters to the top of the page. Users can now decide which columns to see, which will be persisted along your filter preferences.

If you want to take a closer look and learn more about Roadie, request a demo!

Shell into pods without leaving Backstage

Thanks to luchillo17, you’ll be able to offer your developers a webshell so they can debug or troubleshoot a service without dealing with the location or authentication of the underlying cluster — all without leaving Backstage!

This feature will be shipped with Backstage 1.18, which will be released next week!

The current webshell works for pods based on a single, server-side-authenticated cluster. jamieklassen, who laid the foundations for the feature, is already discussing how to make shell-into-pod more generic in Backstage. Check out the issue and chime in!