create-an-app.md

Backstage App

To get set up quickly with your own Backstage project you can create a Backstage App.

A Backstage App is a monorepo setup with lerna that includes everything you need to run Backstage in your own environment.

Create an app

To create a Backstage app, you will need to have NodeJS Active LTS Release installed (currently v12).

With npx:

npx @backstage/cli create-app

This will create a new Backstage App inside the current folder. The name of the app-folder is the name that was provided when prompted.

Inside that directory, it will generate all the files and folder structure needed for you to run your app.

Folder structure

app
├── README.md
├── lerna.json
├── package.json
├── prettier.config.js
├── tsconfig.json
├── packages
│   └── app
│       ├── package.json
│       ├── tsconfig.json
│       ├── public
│       │   └──  ...
│       └── src
│           ├── App.test.tsx
│           ├── App.tsx
│           ├── index.tsx
│           ├── plugins.ts
│           └── setupTests.ts
└── plugins
    └── welcome
        ├── README.md
        ├── package.json
        ├── tsconfig.json
        └── src
            ├── index.ts
            ├── plugin.test.ts
            ├── plugin.ts
            ├── setupTests.ts
            └── components
                ├── Timer
                │   └──  ...
                └── WelcomePage
                    └──  ...

Run the app

When the installation is complete you can open the app folder and start the app.

cd my-backstage-app
yarn start

When yarn start is ready it should open up a browser window displaying your app, if not you can navigate to http://localhost:3000.

Next Step - Create a Backstage plugin

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