Today sees support added for 3 more Backstage plugins. Also, TechDocs requires a little less boilerplate than before.

The TechDocs core plugin is now optional
You no longer need to manually add the techdocs-core plugin to every mkdocs.yml file.

Omitting the techdocs-core plugin would make some docs looked quite broken inside Backstage. We’ve seen a few instances where Roadie users have been confused because they forgot to list it in their MkDocs configuration.

This change, contributed by Roadie engineer Jussi Hallila, should reduce the friction for teams who are adopting TechDocs. This is live on Roadie Backstage now.

Lighthouse plugin
Lighthouse is a website performance testing tool from Google. It has a Backstage plugin which adds a lighthouse UI and displays performance test results for websites inside your Backstage catalog.

The lighthouse plugin is now supported on Roadie Backstage.

You’ll need to run your own lighthouse audit service instance to use it. Once you do it should be easy to point the frontend in Roadie at that service, so you get the full integrated experience. This even works behind a VPN.

Documentation explaining how to use the lighthouse plugin on Roadie is here.

Jenkins plugin
Jenkins is one of the most popular CI runners in the world. The Jenkins plugin for Backstage allows you to see CI results inside Backstage alongside all of your other service information.

The Jenkins plugin is now supported on Roadie Backstage. The integration docs are here.

Grafana plugin
Grafana is an open-source (and hosted) ovservability platform. It provides “Operational dashboards for your data here, there, or anywhere.”

The Grafana plugin is now supported on Roadie Backstage. The integration docs are here.