Backstage Frontend Plugin (New Frontend System)

About This Skill

This skill provides specialized knowledge and workflows for building Backstage frontend plugins using the New Frontend System (NFS). It guides the development of UI features including pages, navigation items, entity cards/content, and shared Utility APIs.

What This Skill Provides

1. Specialized workflows - Step-by-step procedures for creating and configuring frontend plugins
2. Best practices - Production-ready patterns for lazy loading, error handling, permissions, and testing
3. Golden path templates - Copy/paste code snippets for common plugin patterns
4. Domain expertise - Backstage-specific knowledge about blueprints, routes, and the plugin system

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when creating UI features for Backstage: pages, navigation items, entity cards/content, or shared Utility APIs.

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Development Workflow

Phase 1: Planning and Research

1.1 Understand the Requirements

Before building a frontend plugin, clearly understand:

• What UI features are needed (pages, navigation, entity content, cards)
• What data the plugin will display or interact with
• Whether Utility APIs are needed for shared logic
• Integration points with other plugins (catalog, permissions, etc.)

1.2 Load Reference Documentation

Load reference files as needed based on the plugin requirements:

For Extension Development:

• 📋 Extension Blueprints Reference - Comprehensive guide to PageBlueprint, SubPageBlueprint, EntityContentBlueprint, ApiBlueprint, and app-level blueprints

For Utility API Development:

• 🔌 Utility APIs Reference - Creating and using Utility APIs for shared logic

For Testing:

• ✅ Testing Reference - Comprehensive testing guide for components, extensions, and APIs

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Phase 2: Implementation

Follow the Golden Path workflow below for implementation, referring to reference files as needed.

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Phase 3: Testing

After implementing the plugin:

1. Load the ✅ Testing Reference
2. Write comprehensive tests for:
   • React components using renderInTestApp with the apis option
   • Extensions using createExtensionTester(...).reactElement()
   • Utility APIs with mocked dependencies
3. Run tests and achieve good coverage:

   yarn backstage-cli package test --coverage --watchAll=false
   

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Phase 4: Review and Polish

Before publishing:

1. Run linting and structure checks
2. Ensure all extensions are listed in the plugin's extensions array
3. Verify lazy loading via dynamic imports in every loader
4. Check permission-based visibility where appropriate
5. Review the Common Pitfalls section below

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Quick Facts

• Create a plugin with yarn new → select frontend-plugin; it generates plugins/<pluginId>/ already wired for the New Frontend System.
• The plugin instance is built with createFrontendPlugin from @backstage/frontend-plugin-api. Export it as the default from src/index.ts.
• Functionality is provided via extensions (PageBlueprint, SubPageBlueprint, ApiBlueprint, EntityContentBlueprint, etc.). Page content is always lazy-loaded using dynamic imports.
• Define route references with createRouteRef (usually in src/routes.ts) and use them in blueprints.
• Use Utility APIs for shared logic (createApiRef + ApiBlueprint), consumed via useApi.
• Hooks (useApi, useRouteRef) and built-in API refs (discoveryApiRef, fetchApiRef, identityApiRef, alertApiRef, errorApiRef, storageApiRef) should be imported from @backstage/frontend-plugin-api in NFS code — they are still re-exported from @backstage/core-plugin-api but that is the legacy import path.
• The dev/index.tsx entrypoint uses createDevApp from @backstage/frontend-dev-utils and is started via yarn start inside the plugin directory.

App integration patterns

• New Frontend System (preferred):
  • Apps using @backstage/frontend-defaults auto-discover a plugin's extensions when the package is installed and listed as a feature.
  • Just install the plugin; routes declared by PageBlueprint mount automatically and their title/icon drive the sidebar.
• Legacy apps (compat path):
  • Only relevant if your target app is still using @backstage/app-defaults and manual FlatRoutes. Most new work should target NFS.

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Production Best Practices

Extensions and Routes

• Keep all routeRefs in src/routes.ts
• Use createSubRouteRef for nested paths
• Export only the plugin (default from src/index.ts)
• Never export extensions/components from the package root

Lazy Loading and UX

PageBlueprint automatically wraps the loader with React Suspense and an error boundary — no need to add them yourself at the extension level. Just keep your loader as a dynamic import:

loader: () => import('./components/ExamplePage').then(m => <m.ExamplePage />),

If you need an error boundary inside a component (e.g. around a risky subtree), use ErrorBoundary from @backstage/core-components.

Utility APIs

• Keep API interfaces small and stable
• Wrap external clients/fetchers
• Provide a mock implementation for tests
• Register via ApiBlueprint and consume with useApi from @backstage/frontend-plugin-api
• Do not fetch in render — use hooks/effects (or a helper like useAsync from react-use)

Permissions and Visibility

Hide/show entity content based on permissions or ownership to avoid broken UX for unauthorized users:

import { usePermission } from '@backstage/plugin-permission-react';
import { somePermission } from '@backstage/plugin-permission-common';

export function ExampleEntityContent() {
  const { loading, allowed } = usePermission({ permission: somePermission });
  if (loading) return null;
  if (!allowed) return null; // or render a friendly message/banner
  return <div>Secret content</div>;
}

Entity Integrations

• Prefer small, focused entity content extensions
• Use the filter param on EntityContentBlueprint to limit to certain entity kinds
• Keep presentational components separate from data hooks

Testing

• Prefer passing apis to renderInTestApp/createExtensionTester over wrapping with TestApiProvider
• Use mockApis.* helpers (mockApis.identity(...), etc.) for common mocks
• Verify routeRefs with useRouteRef via the mountedRoutes option where navigation matters

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Golden Path (Copy/Paste Workflow)

1) Scaffold

# From the repository root (interactive)
yarn new
# Select: frontend-plugin
# Enter plugin id (kebab case, e.g. example)

# Non-interactive (for AI agents/automation)
yarn new --select frontend-plugin --option pluginId=example --option owner=""

This creates plugins/example/ already wired for the New Frontend System:

• src/plugin.tsx — createFrontendPlugin + PageBlueprint
• src/routes.ts — createRouteRef()
• src/index.ts — export { examplePlugin as default } from './plugin'
• src/components/ — example page + list components
• dev/index.tsx — createDevApp({ features: [plugin] }) for standalone dev

The scaffold ships a working example todo app (src/components/TodoPage/ and src/components/TodoList/). Run the cleanup script to strip the example and leave a minimal named page component:

node scripts/cleanup-scaffolding.js plugins/example

Legacy apps only: If yarn new detects a legacy-app repo, it will offer the legacy-frontend-plugin template instead. In that case you'll need to convert manually to NFS — see the migration guide at docs/frontend-system/building-plugins/05-migrating.md.

2) Routes (src/routes.ts)

import { createRouteRef, createSubRouteRef } from '@backstage/frontend-plugin-api';

export const rootRouteRef = createRouteRef();

// Optional: nested paths
export const detailsRouteRef = createSubRouteRef({
  parent: rootRouteRef,
  path: '/details/:id',
});

3) Plugin (src/plugin.tsx)

import {
  createFrontendPlugin,
  PageBlueprint,
} from '@backstage/frontend-plugin-api';
import ExampleIcon from '@material-ui/icons/Extension';
import { rootRouteRef } from './routes';

// Sidebar entry is auto-inferred from the page's title + icon.
const examplePage = PageBlueprint.make({
  params: {
    routeRef: rootRouteRef,
    path: '/example',
    title: 'Example',
    icon: ExampleIcon,
    loader: () => import('./components/ExamplePage').then(m => <m.ExamplePage />),
  },
});

export const examplePlugin = createFrontendPlugin({
  pluginId: 'example',
  extensions: [examplePage],
  routes: { root: rootRouteRef },
});

Note: NavItemBlueprint is deprecated and has been removed entirely on current Backstage main. Nav items are now auto-inferred from any PageBlueprint that has a title and icon, or from the plugin-level title/icon on createFrontendPlugin. New code should not use NavItemBlueprint.

4) Page Component (src/components/ExamplePage.tsx)

Standard React component, no NFS-specific wrapping required:

export function ExamplePage() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Example</h1>
      <p>Hello from the New Frontend System!</p>
    </div>
  );
}

5) Index (src/index.ts)

Only export the plugin as default:

export { examplePlugin as default } from './plugin';

6) Utility API (optional)

// src/api.ts
import { createApiRef } from '@backstage/frontend-plugin-api';

export interface ExampleApi {
  getExample(): { example: string };
}

export const exampleApiRef = createApiRef<ExampleApi>({ id: 'plugin.example.api' });

export class DefaultExampleApi implements ExampleApi {
  getExample() {
    return { example: 'Hello World!' };
  }
}

Register it with ApiBlueprint and consume via useApi:

// src/plugin.tsx
import { ApiBlueprint } from '@backstage/frontend-plugin-api';
import { exampleApiRef, DefaultExampleApi } from './api';

const exampleApi = ApiBlueprint.make({
  name: 'example',
  params: defineParams =>
    defineParams({
      api: exampleApiRef,
      deps: {},
      factory: () => new DefaultExampleApi(),
    }),
});

export const examplePlugin = createFrontendPlugin({
  pluginId: 'example',
  extensions: [exampleApi, examplePage],
  routes: { root: rootRouteRef },
});

Note the callback parameter is defineParams — all upstream docs and real-world plugin code use this name.

7) Entity integration (optional)

import { EntityContentBlueprint } from '@backstage/plugin-catalog-react/alpha';

const exampleEntityContent = EntityContentBlueprint.make({
  params: {
    path: 'example',
    title: 'Example',
    loader: () =>
      import('./components/ExampleEntityContent').then(m => <m.ExampleEntityContent />),
    // Optional: limit to specific entity kinds
    // filter: 'kind:component,api',
    // Optional: tab grouping
    // group: 'overview',
  },
});

8) Sub-pages with tabs (optional)

Create a tabbed parent page by combining PageBlueprint (without a loader) with several SubPageBlueprint children that attach to the parent:

import {
  PageBlueprint,
  SubPageBlueprint,
} from '@backstage/frontend-plugin-api';

const parentPage = PageBlueprint.make({
  params: {
    routeRef: rootRouteRef,
    path: '/example',
    title: 'Example',
    // No loader — inputs.pages render as tabs
  },
});

const overviewTab = SubPageBlueprint.make({
  name: 'overview',
  params: {
    path: '',
    title: 'Overview',
    loader: () => import('./components/Overview').then(m => <m.Overview />),
  },
});

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Verify in an app

• If using the new Frontend System app (@backstage/frontend-defaults):
  • Include your plugin as a feature at app creation.
  • Start the repo (yarn start) and visit the path declared by your PageBlueprint.
• Standalone dev (inside the plugin directory):
  • Run yarn start; dev/index.tsx uses createDevApp to render your plugin with just the features you pass in.

Testing, linting & structure checks

Run tests and lints with Backstage's CLI:

# Always pass --watchAll=false when running non-interactively (CI, AI agents);
# without it jest starts in watch mode and never exits.
yarn backstage-cli package test --watchAll=false
yarn backstage-cli package lint
yarn backstage-cli repo lint

Keep a predictable structure (API layer, hooks, components, routes.ts, plugin.tsx, index.ts).

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Common Pitfalls (and Fixes)

Problem	Solution
Extensions don't render	Ensure they're passed in the plugin's extensions array; loaders must use dynamic imports.
Navigation/links break	Keep routeRefs in src/routes.ts and use useRouteRef from @backstage/frontend-plugin-api to generate links.
Consumers can't install your plugin	Export the plugin as the default export from src/index.ts.
"Extension must be attached to a parent"	Use the correct blueprint (PageBlueprint attaches to app/routes; SubPageBlueprint to a parent page; EntityContentBlueprint to the entity page).
Sidebar item missing	Provide title + icon on PageBlueprint.params, or set plugin-level title/icon on createFrontendPlugin.
Import hygiene warnings	In NFS code, import useApi, useRouteRef, and the built-in API refs from @backstage/frontend-plugin-api, not @backstage/core-plugin-api.

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Reference Files

📚 Documentation Library

Load these resources as needed during development:

Extension Development

• 📋 Extension Blueprints Reference — Complete guide to extension blueprints including:
  • PageBlueprint / SubPageBlueprint for pages and tab hierarchies
  • ApiBlueprint for Utility APIs
  • EntityContentBlueprint / EntityCardBlueprint / EntityHeaderBlueprint etc. (catalog)
  • PluginHeaderActionBlueprint, PluginWrapperBlueprint (alpha)
  • App-level blueprints in @backstage/plugin-app-react (ThemeBlueprint, SignInPageBlueprint, IconBundleBlueprint, etc.)
  • makeWithOverrides and custom blueprint authoring

Utility API Development

• 🔌 Utility APIs Reference — Creating and using Utility APIs including:
  • API interface definition patterns
  • Creating API references with createApiRef
  • Implementing default API classes
  • Registering with ApiBlueprint
  • Using APIs in components with useApi
  • Common API patterns (REST clients, caching, event bus)
  • Testing strategies

Testing

• ✅ Testing Reference — Comprehensive testing guide including:
  • Testing React components with renderInTestApp and the apis option
  • Testing extensions with createExtensionTester(...).reactElement()
  • mockApis.* helpers and TestApiProvider for standalone rendering
  • Testing permissions and entity components
  • Routes and navigation testing
  • Best practices and common patterns

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External References

• Building Frontend Plugins — NFS plugin authoring.
• Extension Blueprints — Framework reference.
• Common Extension Blueprints — Cheat sheet for all built-in blueprints.
• Frontend System Testing — Canonical testing guide.