Tags | Integrations | Backstage |

Applies to: All Stack Overflow for Teams

Overview

Backstage.io is a developer portal that streamlines software development by providing developers a common repository of code, libraries, documentation, and other resources. You can connect Backstage to your Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise site to display questions, tags, and users, as well as ask questions from your Backstage application.

NOTE: This integration works only with Stack Overflow for Teams Enterprise (SOE).

Integration components

The Backstage SOE integration uses three plugins:

Frontend Teams Plugin Provides the user interface elements that display Stack Overflow content and functionality within your Backstage application.
Backend Teams Plugin Handles API communication between Backstage and your SOE site.
Search Collator Plugin (Optional) Indexes all questions from your SOE site, displaying search results directly within Backstage's search functionality.

This guide details the steps for setting up this integration.

NOTE: You'll find it helpful to have a text file or other working document open to copy/paste information as you go through this process.

Code example

Our Github repository holds a Backstage SOE integration already configured with the three plugins. If in doubt, use this example to help configure your own site.

Create a service key

To connect your site to the Backstage integration, the best approach is for an SOE administrator to create a service key. Learn more about API applications and SOE service keys in the Stack Overflow for Teams API v3 article.

Other users will see your Backstage service key, so be sure to give it a descriptive name (such as "Backstage"). For the service key domain, specify the domain of your Backstage site.

Once you've created the service key, refresh the page, change its Status to read-write, and click Confirm. Backstage will need the client_id, so be sure to save it to your working document.

If you plan to use the optional search collator plugin, you'll need an access token. Generate an access token by following the instructions in the Secure API Token Generation with OAuth and PKCE article. The secure token doesn’t require write access, but we recommend enabling the no_expiry scope. Copy this token and save it to your working document.

The Backstage backend system

Backstage made changes to how the framework's backend system works with their v1.31.0 release. The instructions in this article assume you're using this New Backend System. You can migrate to the new backend system by following the Migrating your Backend to the New Backend System article.

You can use this integration with the older backend system, but these instructions will not apply. Instead, start by completing the Getting Started with Search guide from Backstage. Then follow the instructions in this Stack Overflow search collator GitHub repository.

NOTE: The following instructions require the new Backstage backend system.

Backend installation

Add the Stack Overflow for Teams Backend plugin and collator plugin as dependencies in your Backstage application.
From your Backstage root directory run:
```
yarn --cwd packages/backend add backstage-plugin-stack-overflow-teams-backend
yarn –cwd packages/backend add backstage-stack-overflow-teams-collator
```
This will add the plugins to the backend of the application.
Import the plugins.
Edit packages/backend/src/index.ts and add the Teams Backend plugin and collator:
```
backend.add(import('backstage-plugin-stack-overflow-teams-backend'));
backend.add(import('backstage-stack-overflow-teams-collator'));
```
NOTE: You can find an example index.ts file in our Github repository.
Configure the Backstage application with your Stack Overflow for Teams API credentials.
For security, you shouldn't hard-code sensitive information (such as passwords or access tokens) into your application. Instead, you should store these in the environment and pass them to your application at runtime. How you'll accomplish this depends on your application and environment configuration. What follows is an example using the dotenv library to safely store and pass credentials.
Install dotenv
Run the following command to add the dotenv library to your backend:
```
yarn --cwd packages/backend add dotenv
```
Configure dotenv
Edit the packages/backend/src/index.ts file to load the .env variables into the application. Add the following lines of code:
```
import dotenv from 'dotenv'; // Import the dotenv module
dotenv.config(); // Load environment variables from the .env file into process.env
```
Create and configure the .env file
Create a new .env file in the packages/backend folder. Define your environment variables in that file:
```
STACK_OVERFLOW_INSTANCE_URL=your_instance_url
STACK_OVERFLOW_API_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_access_token
STACK_OVERFLOW_CLIENT_ID=your_clientid
```
Ensure git doesn't upload .env
Add .env to your .gitignore file to prevent git from pushing it to the server:
```
# Environment Variables
.env
```
Load environment variables
Your app-config.yaml should contain the following lines:
```
  stackoverflow:
    baseUrl: ${STACK_OVERFLOW_INSTANCE_URL}
    teamName: ${STACK_OVERFLOW_TEAM_NAME} // optional
    apiAccessToken: ${STACK_OVERFLOW_API_ACCESS_TOKEN}
    client_id: ${STACK_OVERFLOW_CLIENT_ID}
    redirect_uri: ${STACK_OVERFLOW_REDIRECT_URI} // this should navigate to /stack-overflow-teams in your Backstage site
```

NOTE: You can find an example app-config.yaml file in our Github repository.

Frontend installation

Set up search

Install the frontend plugin to use the integration functionality and format the indexed questions. As a prerequisite, you’ll need to have your SearchPage.tsx file ready for modifications. For more information, read the Backstage Getting Started with Search guide.

In this example, we'll obtain the indexed search results and render them conditionally.

NOTE: If you created your application by using npx @backstage/create-app, you’ll already have a search page defined at packages/app/src/components/search. You can simply edit that file.

First, install the frontend Stack Overflow plugin. Run:

yarn --cwd packages/app add backstage-plugin-stack-overflow-teams

Edit packages/app/src/components/search/SearchPage.tsx.

By default, SearchPage.tsx displays the search results without conditional formatting. You'll modify this to let the type of returned search results control how the search results appear.

Locate the following section in the existing <SearchResult><SearchResult/> code:

Replace this code with the snippet found in the Backstage Customizing Search documentation as below:

Disregard the error indicators—you'll fix them in the following steps.

Import the <List/> component from the Material UI library by adding it to the @material-ui/core import array:

Add a default case which uses Backstage's <DefaultResultListItem/> component:

default:
  return (
    <DefaultResultListItem
      key={result.document.location}
      result={result.document}
      highlight={result.highlight}
    />

Import the <DefaultResultListItem/> component:

Add the StackOverflow case to conditionally render the <StackOverflowSearchResultListItem /> component from the frontend plugin we installed:

case 'stack-overflow':
  return (
    <StackOverflowSearchResultListItem
      key={result.document.location}
      result={result.document}
      highlight={result.highlight}
    />
  );

Import the list item component from @backstage-plugin-stack-overflow-teams:

Add the Stack Overflow results to the Search accordion.

Locate the <SearchType.Accordion/> component and add the following code snippet to the accordion:

{
  value: 'stack-overflow',
  name: 'Stack Overflow',
  icon: <StackOverflowIcon />,
},

Import the <StackOverflowIcon /> component from @backstage-plugin-stack-overflow-teams.

Configuration is complete. Before running the application, ensure all dependencies are installed by running yarn install on the root directory of your Backstage application.

Example SearchPage.tsx code

You can find an example of the SearchPage.tsx used in this article in our Github repository.

The frontend plugin includes the Stack Overflow hub (reusable frontend components) and a modal component you can integrate anywhere in your UI. The hub displays top questions, tags, and users. To incorporate this hub into your Backstage frontend, create a new frontend route and place the route's shortcut within the UI. Additionally, you can add the modal component in a convenient location.

Create a frontend route for the plugin

Navigate to your frontend App.tsx file, usually found at packages/frontend/src. Scroll until you see the <Route /> elements. Add a route for the StackOverflowTeamsPage component as follows:

Make sure the component is imported from the plugin:

Create a shortcut for the route (optional). Though not required, we recommend adding this shortcut to the sidebar for convenience.
To add the shortcut, navigate to packages/app/src/components/Root.tsx. Scroll down to locate the SidebarItem section. Here you'll add a new sidebar item with the Stack Overflow logo. In the UI, clicking the logo will direct users to the route we built earlier.
While you're here, add the ‘Ask a Question’ modal to the sidebar. This makes the button available from anywhere in the Backstage application.
The <StackOverflowPostQuestionModal /> listens to the event 'openAskQuestionModal' regardless of where the event is created. Add a new SidebarItem to create that event, and also add the <StackOverflowPostQuestionModal /> as seen below:
Get all the resources imported from the plugin:

UI examples

Below are examples of how the UI should look.

Search page

Test the integration

Before running the app, ensure all dependencies are correctly installed by running ‘yarn install’ on the Backstage root directory one last time. After that, run the app and look for any errors.

If the Backstage integration is set up correctly, logging in should redirect you to your Enterprise instance with the following message. Click Approve.

Once authorized, you should see the Stack Overflow hub.

You should see Ask a Question in the sidebar everywhere in Backstage. Click this to bring up the "Ask a Stack Overflow Question" modal.

Troubleshooting and understanding errors

If your Stack Overflow site has many questions, it can take some time for the collator to build the index. If everything is configured correctly, you should see messages like these in the console:

If the collator plugin runs without error but doesn’t receive any data from Stack Overflow, the application will fail to create the index. If this happens, check for a warning message in the backend console stating that the index for Stack Overflow was not created.

Double-check the configuration file to ensure your Stack Overflow credentials and other configurations are correct. For more information, refer to the Stack Overflow for Teams API v3 Overview article as well as the collator plugin's config definition file.

If you don’t see any warnings or errors, the indexer has successfully received the search data.

Need help? Submit an issue or question through our support portal.

Backstage.io Integration