Introduction to Backstage: Developer Portals Made Easy

Developers working in cloud native teams face the challenge of shuffling between microservices, external APIs, libraries, and other software components. Developer portals like Backstage can help teams reduce tech fragmentation, knowledge silos, and lack of ownership while promoting creativity and autonomy. LFS142x is designed for DevOps engineers and professionals interested in or working in Developer Productivity or Developer Experience teams. The course starts with a discussion on developer portals, arguing in favor of implementing one in your organization. It then goes on to discuss Backstage, the leading open source framework for creating developer portals, covering the architecture, features (Catalog, Scaffolder, TechDocs, and Plugins). It then goes over running Backstage both locally and in production, and helps you map your organization’s needs to what Backstage has to offer. Last but not least, you will learn how you can get involved and contribute to the Backstage project. This course prepares you to create a Backstage setup that fits your organization’s needs. 36:T

• Discuss the benefits of implementing a Developer Portal in your organization
• Explain what Backstage is
• Discuss Backstage’s architecture
• Map your organization's needs to what Backstage has to offer
• Set up a Backstage Catalog
• Explain how Backstage’s Scaffolder works
• Explain how Backstage’s TechDocs work
• Customize Backstage with plugins

• To make the most of this course, you should be familiar with source control systems and repositories and have basic knowledge of GitHub and JavaScript (especially React and Node.js). For learners using Windows, knowing how to install PostgreSQL locally is a plus.