🔧 Repository: Documentation & Guidelines on Local Plugin Development

[jrtaylorJH]

📜 Description

Backstage and community plugin repo documentation severely lack a description and/or general set of guidelines on how best to actively develop and test code in this repository locally. There should be specific documentation provided that explains how best to clone this repo and develop locally against one or more of the plugins. I believe that this would substantially improve community engagement, and at least create a uniform starting point that conversations around developing these plugins can operate upon.

👍 Expected behavior

A clear and concise README.md or CONTRIBUTING.md file containing step-by-step instructions for local development and contribution to this repository.

👎 Current Behavior

Lack of centralized documentation

👟 Reproduction steps

N/A

📃 Provide the context for the Bug.

Sometimes, we create a test app in order to assist with local development, as in this example. However, this is only present in very few of the plugin directories, and the only way to divine this process is to locate a similar PR or extrapolate from unrelated Backstage guides that sort of indirectly articulate this process.

Roadie's documentation for their plugin monorepo is a great place to start. While their repository structure is different and allows for a shared test app, they at least sort of (and rather imperfectly) describe the steps it takes to get up and running with local development.

👀 Have you spent some time to check if this bug has been raised before?

• I checked and didn't find similar issue

🏢 Have you read the Code of Conduct?

• I have read the Code of Conduct

Are you willing to submit PR?

No, but I'm happy to collaborate on a PR with someone else

[jrtaylorJH]

#413

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[BethGriggs]

There was a relevant discussion in todays Community Plugins SIG. A summary:

• Documentation and general good practises for plugin development should live in Backstage core/framework documentation.
• We should reference and link to those documents from the Community Plugins repository.
• Any specific guidance for developing within Community Plugins should be documented within this repository as an addendum to the general guidance.

It was also mentioned this is a good/common topic to be discussed and worked on through the Documentation SIG.