create-a-plugin.md

Create a Backstage Plugin

A Backstage Plugin adds functionality to Backstage.

Create a Plugin

To create a new plugin, make sure you've run yarn install and installed dependencies, then run the following on your command line (invoking the backstage-cli).

yarn create-plugin

This will create a new Backstage Plugin based on the ID that was provided. It will be built and added to the Backstage App automatically.

If yarn start is already running you should be able to see the default page for your new plugin directly by navigating to http://localhost:3000/my-plugin.

You can also serve the plugin in isolation by running yarn start in the plugin directory. Or by using the yarn workspace command, for example:

yarn workspace @backstage/plugin-welcome start # Also supports --check

This method of serving the plugin provides quicker iteration speed and a faster startup and hot reloads. It is only meant for local development, and the setup for it can be found inside the plugin's dev/ directory.

Next Step - Structure of a plugin

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