Add custom plugins in IDP

Learn about the steps to add your custom plugin in IDP.

This feature is in BETA and is available behind the feature flag IDP_ENABLE_CUSTOM_PLUGINS. If you want to try out this feature, reach out to the IDP team. We would love to work with you and take feedback.

In IDP we allow addition of, backstage frontend plugins, created by you as a custom plugin. Following are the step-by-step instructions to add your custom plugins in IDP.

1. Go to Plugins under Configure section.

2. Now you could find the Custom Plugins tab on the Plugins page.

3. Start by creating a New Custom Plugin

As the feature is in beta we do not have proper error handling in place yet, so for all the steps below make sure all your entries are correct for the plugin.

Add/Upload a new plugin

NPM Library

1. Now add the URL for your plugin public npm package.

eg,. https://www.npmjs.com/package/@parsifal-m/plugin-dev-quotes-homepage, https://www.npmjs.com/package/backstage-plugin-should-i-deploy

Upload Zip file

1. You can as well pack your backstage frontend plugins using yarn pack and upload the resulting package.tgz file

Only files packaged using yarn pack is to be used while uploading the zip file.

How to create and pack your front end Plugin

1. Install backstage following this documentation

2. Give your app a name.

3. Now cd <your-app-name>.

4. Now create a scaffolder for frontend plugin using yarn new --select plugin

5. You now have a plugin with the following folder structure.

new-plugin/
    dev/
        index.ts
    node_modules/
    src/
        components/
            ExampleComponent/
                ExampleComponent.test.tsx
                ExampleComponent.tsx
                index.ts
            ExampleFetchComponent/
                ExampleFetchComponent.test.tsx
                ExampleFetchComponent.tsx
                index.ts
        index.ts
        plugin.test.ts
        plugin.ts
        routes.ts
        setupTests.ts
    .eslintrc.js
    package.json
    README.md

1. Follow the steps mentioned here to build on top of it.

2. Once you have the plugin ready, run yarn tsc at the root of the backstage app.

3. Now cd into your plugin directory and run yarn build followed by yarn pack. You will have a package.tgz file generated, this file could be used to upload your plugin into IDP.

Make sure you have the dist folder generated after you do yarn pack without that the package cannot be read by IDP when uploaded. The yarn pack command looks something like this.

dev % yarn build
dev % yarn pack 
➤ YN0036: Calling the "prepack" lifecycle script
➤ YN0000: LICENSE
➤ YN0000: README.md
➤ YN0000: dist/index.d.ts
➤ YN0000: dist/index.esm.js
➤ YN0000: dist/index.esm.js.map
➤ YN0000: package.json
➤ YN0036: Calling the "postpack" lifecycle script
➤ YN0000: Package archive generated in /Users/deba/Documents/backstage-dev-quotes/package.tgz
➤ YN0000: Done in 2s 341ms

Unzip the package.tgz and check for the dist folder before you try uploading it into Harness. The unzipped folder for the above given example plugin folder structure would look something like this:

new-plugin/
    dev/
        index.ts
    node_modules/
    dist/
        index.d.ts
        index.esm.js
        index.esm.js.map
    src/
        components/
            ExampleComponent/
                ExampleComponent.test.tsx
                ExampleComponent.tsx
                index.ts
            ExampleFetchComponent/
                ExampleFetchComponent.test.tsx
                ExampleFetchComponent.tsx
                index.ts
        index.ts
        plugin.test.ts
        plugin.ts
        routes.ts
        setupTests.ts
    .eslintrc.js
    package.json
    README.md

Plugin metadata

1. Now Click Next and start adding the Plugin Metadata. You have to fill the following fields

   • Plugin Name : Add a name for your Plugin

   • Package name : This will be same as your plugin package present in your plugin's package.json file. Make sure the name is exactly similar to what is mentioned in the package.json including @, e.g.: @parsifal-m/plugin-dev-quotes-homepage

   • Description : Add an apt description for your plugin, especially the function of the plugin.

   • Category : Add an functional category for your plugin like Monitoring, Observability, CI/CD etc.

   • Created By : Add the User Group you belong to from the dropdown.

   • Plugin applies to entity : Add the software components to which your plugin applies to usually it is Service.

   • Add Plugin Screenshots (optional) : Not available yet

   • Additional fields : Fill it as shown in the image below.

Layout

1. Now click next and Add Layout for your plugin. You have 3 categories in this and the layout is sourced from packages/app/src/components/Catalog/EntityPage.tsx. Below are the examples.

• Card: Here is an example EntityLinksCard of Links card on Overview page.

• Tab: Here is an example EntityHarnessCiCdContent of Harness CI/CD tab.

• Menu Item in SideNav: Here is an example of TODO plugin in side nav.

• Conditional: Here is an example of the Harness CI/CD plugin, also conditional is required if you want to check for the annotations in catalog-info.yaml in case of absence of adequate annotation required the plugin will not show up for the particular software component.

Configurations

CSP ENFORCEMENT: USE THE BACKEND PROXY FOR EXTERNAL CALLS

Due to Content Security Policy (CSP) enforcement, direct calls to external endpoints from custom plugins will be blocked. Use the Backend Proxy instead to communicate with external endpoints.

1. Now Click Next and go to the Configurations Page by default configuration is disabled.

2. If your plugin does not require any configuration settings like Proxy or authentication for API you can go ahead and enable the plugin directly.

3. If you require app-config.yaml for your plugin, then enable configuration.

To add a custom config for a plugin you can add it inside customPlugins. For example - if you want to add config for a custom plugin, you can add it in the following way:

customPlugins:
  pluginName:
    key: value
    key1:
      key2: value2

1. Now add the proxy part here, as given below in the example,

proxy:
    endpoints: 
        /mynewplugin:
        target: https://somerandomapi.com/api/v2
        pathRewrite:
            /api/proxy/mynewplugin/?: /
        headers:
            Authorization: "Api-Token ${SECRET_TOKEN}"

Suppose this is the proxy configuration we define in our frontend proxy plugin:

endpoints:
    /github-api:
        target: https://api.github.com
        pathRewrite:
            /api/proxy/github-api/?: /
        headers:
            Authorization: token ${PROXY_GITHUB_TOKEN}

This configuration creates a proxy endpoint in IDP.

• target defines the destination server where the request will be proxies.

• pathRewrite is used to remove or replace parts of the path in the request URL. When a request is made to https://idp.harness.io/<ACCOUNT_ID>/idp/api/proxy/github-api/<path>, the following happens:

1. The target setting modifies the base URL, transforming https://idp.harness.io/<ACCOUNT_ID>/idp/api/proxy/github-api/<path> into https://api.github.com/api/proxy/github-api/<path>.

2. pathRewrite replaces /api/proxy/github-api/ with /, so the URL transforms from https://api.github.com/api/proxy/github-api/<path> to https://api.github.com/<path>.

3. Now in the above proxy authorization is added as a variable SECRET_TOKEN and the secret is stored in Harness Secret manager.

4. You can as well access any private URLs/PORT if required by your plugin and that is behind any firewalls using Harness Delegate.

5. Now Enable the Plugin.

Once you enable the Plugin it will approximately take around 30 minutes for the plugin to be enabled as we rebuild the IDP image with your plugin.

1. Once the plugin is Enabled, to add it in your Sidenav as shown in the image go to the Layout under Configure.

2. For card based plugin update for Service under the overview and add the components for the custom plugin under contents as shown below.

page:
  name: EntityLayout
  tabs:
    - name: Overview
      path: /
      title: Overview
      contents:
        - component: EntityOrphanWarning
        - component: EntityProcessingErrorsPanel
        - component: EntityAboutCard
          specs:
            props:
              variant: gridItem
            gridProps:
              md: 6

• For tab based plugin you can update the component name under Service or any other pages.

• For Full Page Plugin Under the Sidenav configuration, add the plugin name as a SidebarItem with reference to your plugin to: component name under props. Read more about [Configuring Layout of IDP Catalog pages](Configuring Layout of IDP Catalog pages).

Edit/Delete plugin

Once your Plugin is enabled you can find the plugin under Enabled Plugin tab as well as under Custom Plugin tab with Enabled tag, but you can edit or delete plugin only under custom plugins tab. Now click on the 3 dots at top of the Plugin card to edit or delete plugin.