Check labels are being used correctly

Backstage allows adding “labels” to entities in the Catalog. Some teams use labels as a way to specify the “tier” of a service, amongst other use cases.

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: service-1
  labels:
    tier: 3
spec:
  type: service
  owner: sample-team
  lifecycle: production

There are typically two problems with using labels in Backstage.

1. Not all teams will add the tier label to their components.
2. Teams will make up their own labels, and duplicate labels will frequently emerge.

We suggest people using our Tech Insights functionality to create checks to help teams manage labels.

Enforcing mandatory labels

You can use Tech Insights to find components which do not meet the minimum requirements for labels.

Imagine you wanted tier and region to be mandatory. To get a list of components wihch have not added the tier label, you would create a check with the following attributes:

With this check in place, we can now get a list of all services which have not added the tier and region labels.

Here’s a video showing how to construct this check:

https://www.loom.com/share/7c60ba8a6e924868982e9faf96f1a6a4

Enforcing allowable (but optional) labels

In order to find duplicate labels, the best practice is to establish and maintain a list of allowed labels. For example, you may wish to allow the labels tier and region, but not the label location.

To get a list of components wihch have added unallowed label, you would create a check with the following attributes:

To change the list of allowable labels, simple edit the check and add to the Value field.