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Backstage

Port's Backstage integration allows you to model Backstage resources in your software catalog and ingest data into them.

Overview​

This integration allows you to:

  • Map and organize your desired Backstage resources and their metadata in Port (see supported resources below).
  • Watch for Backstage object changes (create/update/delete) in real-time, and automatically apply the changes to your entities in Port.

Supported resources​

The resources that can be ingested from Backstage into Port are listed below. It is possible to reference any field that appears in the API responses linked below in the mapping configuration.

Prerequisites​

Create a Backstage token​

Port will authenticate to Backstage via static tokens.
Configure a token for Port using the following Backstage configuration:

backend:
  auth:
    externalAccess:
      - type: static
        options:
          token: YOUR-TOKEN
          subject: port-ocean-access

Replace YOUR-TOKEN with your Backstage token.
To create a token, Backstage recommends to use the following command:

node -p 'require("crypto").randomBytes(24).toString("base64")'

Setup​

Choose one of the following installation methods:
Not sure which method is right for your use case? Check the available installation methods.

Using this installation option means that the integration will be hosted by Port, with a customizable resync interval to ingest data into Port.

Live event support

Currently, live events are not supported for this integration.
Resyncs will be performed periodically (with a configurable interval), or manually triggered by you via Port's UI.

Therefore, real-time events (including GitOps) will not be ingested into Port immediately.
Live events support for this integration is WIP and will be supported in the near future.

Self-hosted installation

Alternatively, you can install the integration using the Self-hosted method to update Port in real time using webhooks.

Installation

To install, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Data sources page of your portal.

  2. Click on the + Data source button in the top-right corner.

  3. Click on the relevant integration in the list.

  4. Under Select your installation method, choose Hosted by Port.

  5. Configure the integration settings and application settings as you wish (see below for details).

Application settings

Every integration hosted by Port has the following customizable application settings, which are configurable after installation:

  • Resync interval: The frequency at which Port will ingest data from the integration. There are various options available, ranging from every 1 hour to once a day. If a sync is still in progress when the next one is due, the new sync will be skipped (up to 24 hours delay).
    This ensures that all kinds are fully synchronized and that cleanup of stale entities always takes place at the end of each sync.

  • Send raw data examples: A boolean toggle (enabled by default). If enabled, raw data examples will be sent from the integration to Port. These examples are used when testing your mapping configuration, they allow you to run your jq expressions against real data and see the results.

Integration settings

Every integration has its own tool-specific settings, under the Integration settings section.
Each of these settings has an ⓘ icon next to it, which you can hover over to see a description of the setting.

Port secrets

Some integration settings require sensitive pieces of data, such as tokens.
For these settings, Port secrets will be used, ensuring that your sensitive data is encrypted and secure.

When filling in such a setting, its value will be obscured (shown as ••••••••).
For each such setting, Port will automatically create a secret in your organization.

To see all secrets in your organization, follow these steps.

Limitations

  • The maximum time for a full sync to run is based on the configured resync interval. For very large amounts of data where a resync operation is expected to take longer, please use a longer interval.

Port source IP addresses

When using this installation method, Port will make outbound calls to your 3rd-party applications from static IP addresses.
You may need to add these addresses to your allowlist, in order to allow Port to interact with the integrated service:

54.73.167.226  
63.33.143.237  
54.76.185.219

Configuration​

Port integrations use a YAML mapping block to ingest data from the third-party api into Port.

The mapping makes use of the JQ JSON processor to select, modify, concatenate, transform and perform other operations on existing fields and values from the integration API.

Default mapping configuration​

This is the default mapping configuration for this integration:

Default mapping configuration (Click to expand)
resources:
- kind: component
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"component"'
        properties:
          type: .spec.type
          lifecycle: .spec.lifecycle
          language: .spec.language
          description: .metadata.description
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
        relations:
          owningUser: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("user:"))) | .targetRef
          owningGroup: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("group:"))) | .targetRef
          system: '"system:" + (.metadata.namespace // "default") + "/" + .spec.system'
          subcomponentOf: .relations[] | select(.type == "subcomponentOf" and (.targetRef | startswith("component:"))) | .targetRef
          providesApis: .relations[] | select(.type == "providesApi" and (.targetRef | startswith("api:"))) | .targetRef
          consumesApis: .relations[] | select(.type == "consumesApi" and (.targetRef | startswith("api:"))) | .targetRef
          dependsOnComponent: .relations[] | select(.type == "dependsOn" and (.targetRef | startswith("component:"))) | .targetRef
          dependsOnResource: .relations[] | select(.type == "dependsOn" and (.targetRef | startswith("resource:"))) | .targetRef
- kind: API
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"api"'
        properties:
          type: .spec.type
          lifecycle: .spec.lifecycle
          definition: .spec.definition | tostring
          definitionOpenAPI: if .spec.type == "open-api" then .spec.definition else null end
          definitionAsyncAPI: if .spec.type == "async-api" then .spec.definition else null end
          definitionGRPC: if .spec.type == "grpc" then .spec.definition else null end
          definitionGraphQL: if .spec.type == "graphql" then .spec.definition else null end
          description: .metadata.description
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
        relations:
          owningUser: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("user:"))) | .targetRef
          owningGroup: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("group:"))) | .targetRef
          system: '"system:" + (.metadata.namespace // "default") + "/" + .spec.system'
- kind: group
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"group"'
        properties:
          description: .metadata.description
          type: .metadata.type
          email: .metadata.email
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
        relations:
          parent: .relations[] | select(.type == "childOf" and (.targetRef | startswith("group:"))) | .targetRef
          members: .relations[] | select(.type == "hasMember" and (.targetRef | startswith("user:"))) | .targetRef
- kind: user
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"user"'
        properties:
          email: .metadata.email
          description: .metadata.description
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
- kind: resource
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"resource"'
        properties:
          type: .spec.type
          description: .metadata.description
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
        relations:
          owningUser: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("user:"))) | .targetRef
          owningGroup: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("group:"))) | .targetRef
          system: '"system:" + (.metadata.namespace // "default") + "/" + .spec.system'
          dependsOnResource: .relations[] | select(.type == "dependsOn" and (.targetRef | startswith("resource:"))) | .targetRef
          dependsOnComponent: .relations[] | select(.type == "dependsOn" and (.targetRef | startswith("component:"))) | .targetRef
- kind: system
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"system"'
        properties:
          description: .metadata.description
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
        relations:
          owningUser: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("user:"))) | .targetRef
          owningGroup: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("group:"))) | .targetRef
          domain: .relations[] | select(.type == "partOf" and (.targetRef | startswith("domain:"))) | .targetRef
- kind: domain
  selector:
    query: 'true'
  port:
    entity:
      mappings:
        identifier: .metadata.identifier
        title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
        blueprint: '"domain"'
        properties:
          description: .metadata.description
          labels: .metadata.labels
          annotations: .metadata.annotations
          links: .metadata.links
          tags: .metadata.tags
        relations:
          owningUser: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("user:"))) | .targetRef
          owningGroup: .relations[] | select(.type == "ownedBy" and (.targetRef | startswith("group:"))) | .targetRef

Limitations​

Currently, the integration does not support custom entity kinds.

Examples​

To view and test the integration's mapping against examples of the third-party API responses, use the jq playground in your data sources page. Find the integration in the list of data sources and click on it to open the playground.

Additional examples of blueprints and the relevant integration configurations:

Component​

Component blueprint (click to expand)
{
  "identifier": "component",
  "title": "Component",
  "icon": "Cloud",
  "schema": {
    "properties": {
      "type": {
        "title": "Type",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "lifecycle": {
        "title": "Lifecycle",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "language": {
        "type": "string",
        "title": "Language"
      },
      "description": {
        "type": "string",
        "format": "markdown",
        "title": "Description"
      },
      "labels": {
        "type": "object",
        "title": "Labels"
      },
      "annotations": {
        "type": "object",
        "title": "Annotations"
      },
      "links": {
        "type": "array",
        "items": {
          "format": "url",
          "type": "string"
        },
        "title": "Links"
      },
      "tags": {
        "type": "array",
        "title": "Tags"
      }
    },
    "required": []
  },
  "calculationProperties": {}
}
Mapping configuration (click to expand)
createMissingRelatedEntities: true
deleteDependentEntities: true
resources:
  - kind: component
    selector:
      query: "true"
    port:
      entity:
        mappings:
          identifier: .metadata.identifier
          title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
          blueprint: '"component"'
          properties:
            type: .spec.type
            lifecycle: .spec.lifecycle
            language: .spec.language
            description: .metadata.description
            labels: .metadata.labels
            annotations: .metadata.annotations
            links: .metadata.links
            tags: .metadata.tags

Group​

Group blueprint (click to expand)
{
  "identifier": "group",
  "title": "Group",
  "icon": "TwoUsers",
  "schema": {
    "properties": {
      "type": {
        "title": "Type",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "email": {
        "title": "Email",
        "type": "string",
        "format": "email"
      },
      "description": {
        "type": "string",
        "format": "markdown",
        "title": "Description"
      },
      "labels": {
        "type": "object",
        "title": "Labels"
      },
      "annotations": {
        "type": "object",
        "title": "Annotations"
      },
      "links": {
        "type": "array",
        "items": {
          "format": "url",
          "type": "string"
        },
        "title": "Links"
      },
      "tags": {
        "type": "array",
        "title": "Tags"
      }
    },
    "required": []
  },
  "calculationProperties": {}
}
Mapping configuration (click to expand)
createMissingRelatedEntities: true
deleteDependentEntities: true
resources:
  - kind: group
    selector:
      query: 'true'
    port:
      entity:
        mappings:
          identifier: .metadata.identifier
          title: .metadata.title // .metadata.name
          blueprint: '"group"'
          properties:
            description: .metadata.description
            type: .metadata.type
            email: .metadata.email
            labels: .metadata.labels
            annotations: .metadata.annotations
            links: .metadata.links
            tags: .metadata.tags