Define a Backstage entity relation between a Component and a Resource using dependsOn and consumesApi in catalog-info.yaml, then verify the graph in the Catalog UI
domain: backstage.io · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
In the Component's catalog-info.yaml, add a spec.dependsOn list referencing the resource using the format 'resource:<namespace>/<name>'
Add spec.consumesApi entries for any API entities the component consumes, using 'api:<namespace>/<name>' notation
In the Resource entity's catalog-info.yaml, add spec.dependencyOf back-references if bidirectional visibility is desired
Commit and push both files so the Backstage catalog ingests them via the configured integration
In the Backstage UI, open the Component and navigate to the Relations tab to confirm the dependsOn and consumesApi edges appear in the entity graph
Known gotchas
Relation targets must exist as registered entities; a dangling reference causes the entity to show a warning but still renders
Namespace defaults to 'default' if omitted; mismatched namespaces between source and target silently break the relation lookup
Back-references like dependencyOf are informational annotations derived from forward relations and may have a propagation delay after catalog refresh
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