Backstage 0.4: Developer Portal Evolution
K8s Guru
2 min read
Table of Contents
Introduction
Backstage 0.4 — Developer Portal Evolution — was released on September 15, 2021.
This is a practical update aimed at making day‑to‑day Kubernetes work a bit more predictable.
In this release: Backstage 0.4 enhances the developer portal with improved plugin ecosystem, better Kubernetes integration, and enhanced developer experience features.
Enhanced Plugin Ecosystem
- Plugin marketplace expansion provides more pre-built plugins for common integrations and workflows.
- Plugin development improvements simplify creating custom plugins with better SDKs and documentation.
- Plugin isolation enhancements ensure plugins don’t interfere with each other or the core platform.
- Plugin versioning enables teams to manage plugin updates and dependencies more effectively.
Kubernetes Integration Improvements
- Kubernetes plugin enhancements provide better visualization of workloads, services, and ingress resources.
- Multi-cluster support enables viewing and managing resources across multiple Kubernetes clusters.
- Resource health indicators provide real-time status of pods, deployments, and services.
- Cost insights integration shows resource usage and cost allocation per service.
Developer Experience Enhancements
- Search improvements enable faster discovery of services, APIs, and documentation across the platform.
- TechDocs enhancements provide better documentation rendering with improved navigation and search.
- Software templates expansion offers more scaffolding options for common service patterns.
- CI/CD integration improvements provide better visibility into build and deployment pipelines.
Security & Access Control
- RBAC improvements enable fine-grained access control for different user roles and teams.
- Authentication enhancements support more identity providers and SSO configurations.
- Audit logging provides comprehensive tracking of user actions and platform changes.
- Secret management integration enables secure handling of credentials and API keys.
Getting Started
npx @backstage/create-app@latest
cd my-backstage-app
yarn dev
Install Kubernetes plugin:
yarn workspace app add @backstage/plugin-kubernetes
Summary
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 15, 2021 |
| Headline Features | Enhanced plugin ecosystem, improved Kubernetes integration, better developer experience |
| Why it Matters | Continues to mature as the leading platform for building internal developer portals |
Backstage 0.4 demonstrates continued growth in the developer portal space, providing teams with powerful tools to improve developer productivity and platform visibility.