RoadieDocs

Preview Component Changes

Published on April 1st, 2022

Introduction

Currently, previewing changes to a catalog-info.yaml file is not well supported in Backstage. However, you can still do so if needed by essentially creating a new component manually using your branch and a namespace to differentiate it from the real component, and then delete it after.

The steps are the following:

  1. Add a namespace of ‘preview’ (or whatever you want) to the catalog-info.yaml file you want to test (if you don’t, you will get a conflict with the existing component)
...
kind: Location
metadata:
  name: <repo-name>
  namespace: preview
...
  1. Go to /catalog-import in Roadie Backstage
  2. Import the catalog-info file URL from a branch on your version control, i.e. https://github.com/<your-github-org>/<your-repo>/blob/<your-branch-name>/catalog-info.yaml
  3. View your branch based component, and make updates to the branch file to see changes pulled in automatically.
  4. Delete the component when you are finished.