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Generating Backstage Components

The Backstage Controller generates Backstage components and templates for Promises and Resource Requests.

Prerequisites​

SKE installation​

Backstage Controller has dependency on SKE. If you haven't installed SKE, please refer to the SKE installation guide.

warning

You will need SKE 0.28.0 or later for Backstage Controller to work.

SKE Backstage plugins​

The generated Backstage Templates reference an action from the ske-backend Backstage plugin, this action is used to create a Resource Request. The generated Components are also used by the ske-frontend Backstage plugin to display Promise and Resource metadata.

In order to utilise the Templates and Components, you should also install both the ske-backend and ske-frontend plugins into your Backstage instance.

See Configuring the Plugins for installation instructions.

Backstage Destination​

You must have a Destination created with the environment: backstage label. See the Kratix Backstage docs for setup instructions.

Installing the Backstage Controller​

The Controller is released separately from SKE. Its releases can be found here.

The Controller can be installed using the helm chart.

You will need to start by adding the Syntasso Helm repository:

helm repo add syntasso https://syntasso.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

Configure values​

Helm can accept values via the values file. Any configuration should be placed in a values.yaml file that is then passed in to the helm install command. For all available configurations, please refer to the default values file in Backstage Controller chart.

Below are instructions on how you could use the values file to configure SKE license and image registry.

The SKE license​

Both the Backstage Controller image and the SKE Backstage Generator image used by the Controller are hosted in a private registry, to access these images, you will need to authenticate using the token you have been provided with.

The Backstage Controller chart will, be default, use a secret named syntasso-registry in the kratix-platform-system namespace. This secret is created and managed by the SKE operator helm chart. If you wish to create a different image pull secret, you can run the following command:

kubectl create secret docker-registry YOUR-SECRET-NAME \
  --namespace=kratix-platform-system \
  --docker-server=registry.syntasso.io \
  --docker-username=syntasso-pkg \
  --docker-password=<YOUR TOKEN>

The above command creates a Kubernetes Secret in namespace kratix-platform-system. To use this secret in Backstage Controller chart, you can customize imageRegistry.imagePullSecret in your values file.

# Configuration for the image registry
# Update these values if you are using a private image registry
imageRegistry:
  imagePullSecret: YOUR-SECRET-NAME
# ...

Image registry for Air-gapped Environments​

You may want to manage the Backstage Controller images within your own environment either due to air-gapped requirements or other security measures.

To do this, you will need to set up image mirroring and configure the Backstage Controller distribution to pull images from your own registry.

You must ensure that the following images are mirrored to your own image registry and tagged according to the version.

  • registry.syntasso.io/syntasso/backstage-controller
  • registry.syntasso.io/syntasso/ske-backstage-generator

You can then customize imageRegistry.host in your values file:

# Configuration for the image registry
# Update these values if you are using a private image registry
imageRegistry:
  host: "my-org.registry.io"
...

Deploy the Backstage Controller​

Next, install Backstage Controller by running:

helm install backstage-controller syntasso/backstage-controller \
  --namespace kratix-platform-system \
  --wait \
  --values values.yaml # This is optional. Only use if you are configuring custom values.

How does it work?​

The SKE Backstage Controller creates a Workflow that automatically generates the Backstage components and templates for your Promise. This Workflow runs in addition to the Configure Workflow for your Promises and Requests.

Promise Configure​

In a Promise Configure workflow, two Backstage manifests will be generated:

  • Promise Component: A Backstage Component representing the Promise.
  • Promise Template: A Backstage Template representing the Promise API (i.e. the CRD for Resources created from this Promise).

Resource Configure​

In a Resource Configure workflow, a single Backstage manifest will be generated:

  • Resource Component: A Backstage Component representing the Resource.

Check the YAML File Format for examples of these manifests

Labelling Promises for automatic file generation​

To generate Backstage Components and Template for your Promise, as well as Components for requests for that Promise, label your Promise with kratix.io/backstage: true.

kubectl label promises PROMISE_NAME kratix.io/backstage=true

Or add the label to the Promise spec:

apiVersion: platform.kratix.io/v1alpha1
kind: Promise
metadata:
  name: my-promise
  labels:
    kratix.io/backstage: "true"

Customize Backstage Components​

You can customize the automatically generated Backstage Components and Templates by creating BackstageEntityCustomization:

apiVersion: platform.kratix.io/v1alpha1
kind: BackstageEntityCustomization
metadata:
  name: my-customization
spec:
  entityGenerationOptions:
    promise:
      component: # options for the generated Promise Component
        name: my-name # Value for metadata.name
        title: my-title # Value for metadata.title
        description: my-description # Value for metadata.description
        tags: tag1,tag2 # Values for metadata.tags
        type: my-type # Value for spec.type
        lifecycle: my-lifeCycle # Value for spec.lifecycle
        owner: my-owner # Value for spec.owner
        system: my-system # Value for spec.system
        subComponentOf: parent-resource # Value for spec.subcomponentOf
        providesAPIs: api1,api2 # Values for spec.providesAPIs
        consumesAPIs: api3,api4 # Values for spec.consumesAPIs
        dependsOn: dependency1,dependency2 # Values for spec.dependsOn
      template: # options for the generated Promise Template
        hideNamespace: false # Whether to hide the namespace field
        defaultNamespace: default # Default namespace to use
        namespaceFieldTitle: Namespace # Title for the namespace field
        namespaceFieldDescription: "Your team's namespace" # Description for the namespace field
        singleSpecPage: false # Whether to generate a single spec page for the template
        title: my-title # Value for metadata.title
        description: my-description # Value for metadata.description
        tags: tag1,tag2 # Values for metadata.tags
        type: my-type # Value for spec.type
        lifecycle: my-lifeCycle # Value for spec.lifecycle
        owner: my-owner # Value for spec.owner
    resource:
      component:
        name: my-name # Value for metadata.name
        title: my-title # Value for metadata.title
        description: my-description # Value for metadata.description
        tags: tag1,tag2 # Values for metadata.tags
        type: my-type # Value for spec.type
        lifecycle: my-lifeCycle # Value for spec.lifecycle
        owner: my-owner # Value for spec.owner
        system: my-system # Value for spec.system
        subComponentOf: parent-resource # Value for spec.subcomponentOf
        providesAPIs: api1,api2 # Values for spec.providesAPIs
        consumesAPIs: api3,api4 # Values for spec.consumesAPIs
        dependsOn: dependency1,dependency2 # Values for spec.dependsOn
  destinationSelectors: # optional
  - matchLabels:
      environment: backstage
  containers: # optional
    - name: add-backstage-group
      image: ghcr.io/syntasso/run-customization:v0.0.1

Once you have created the BackstageEntityCustomization, you can label your Promise with kratix.io/backstage-customization: my-customization to apply the customization to the Promise and its Resource Requests:

kubectl label promises PROMISE_NAME kratix.io/backstage-customization=my-customization
tip

Backstage Customizations are cluster-wide resources, so ensure create them with unique names

Custom containers​

The containers defined in the customization will run after the backstage-gen container which generates the Components and Templates. They can be used to modify the existing catalog-info.yaml file created by the ske-backstage-generator or it can generate new files. This customization will apply to all Promises with label kratix.io/backstage: "true" as well as Resource Requests for these promises.

info

If you want to a particular Resource Request to not have a Backstage Component generated, you can label the Resource Request with kratix.io/backstage: "false".

If you want to edit the Entities or generate different files based on whether the Workflow is running for a Promise or Resource Request, the container can query the KRATIX_WORKFLOW_TYPE environment variable. For Promises, this is equal to promise-backstage-gen and for resources, resource-backstage-gen.

Destination Selectors​

By default, Destination selectors defined in the customization will apply to all generated Backstage components. You can use these to make sure that generated components are only scheduled to your Backstage destinations.