Register a Backstage component via catalog-info.yaml and the software catalog
domain: backstage.io · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Create a catalog-info.yaml file at the root of your repository with apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1 and kind: Component.
Populate the required metadata fields: name (unique within the namespace), namespace (defaults to default), and annotations such as backstage.io/source-location.
Fill in the required spec fields: type (e.g., service, library, website), lifecycle (e.g., production, experimental), and owner (a reference to a User or Group entity).
Add optional spec fields such as system (grouping component into a System entity) and dependsOn listing entity references the component depends on.
Register the component in Backstage by navigating to the Catalog import page (or POST to the /api/catalog/locations endpoint) and providing the URL to the raw catalog-info.yaml.
Verify the component appears in the Backstage catalog UI and that its relations (owner, system, dependencies) are resolved correctly.
Known gotchas
The spec.lifecycle and spec.owner fields are required; omitting either causes the catalog entity to fail ingestion with a validation error.
Backstage entity names must be unique within a namespace and kind combination; duplicate names across repos result in the catalog choosing one entity and discarding the other without clear error.
The catalog does not automatically re-import on every git push; configure a catalog provider (e.g., GitHub discovery) or rely on the periodic refresh interval to pick up changes.
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