Recent blog posts
We write about testing, design systems, Cloud native, and Backstage.
Tutorial: Using Github Webhooks with Backstage Entity Provider
Min Kim — May 03, 2022
In this short tutorial, Min will show you how to configure Github Webhooks for Backstage's Github Entity Provider
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Testing Backstage Catalog's ingestion
Charles Lowell — March 24, 2022
To test whether the Backstage is setting up the Catalog properly, you must start a Backstage server, wait for a while, and assert. This feat is easier said than done, but Charles will guide you through it in this article.
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Backstage tutorial: plugin integration tests with Cypress + Interactors
Jorge Lainfiesta — March 03, 2022
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to set up integration tests for your Backstage plugins using Material UI Interactors
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Announcing GraphGen: the search for the graph factory
Charles Lowell — February 21, 2022
Creating fake datasets that resemble real ones is nearly impossible today. That's why Frontside is working on a tool that can generate graphs with coherent data and relationships
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Tutorial: How to use your company’s component library with Backstage
Taras Mankovski — February 14, 2022
In this tutorial, Taras will show you how to replace Material UI for your component library in Backstage without losing access to its API.
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When to use SemVer or CalVer: project type considerations
Jacob Bolda — February 09, 2022
Choosing a versioning scheme helps you manage the understanding and expectations of your project over time. In this article, you'll learn about how to decide on whether to use SemVer or CalVer according to your project type.
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What is DX anyway: a chronological overview
Jorge Lainfiesta — January 26, 2022
You can only optimize for concrete indicators, that’s why having a clear understanding of DX is important to improve it. In this article, we review the main trends of the past decade.
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We invite thought leaders to share their ideas about engineering.
OpenTelemetry with Austin Parker
Hosted by Charles Lowell and Taras Mankovski
Austin Parker, Principal Developer Advocate at Lightstep talks about the OpenTelemetry Framework, which is an observability framework for cloud-native software and a collection of tools, APIs, and SDKs.
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Paying Open Source Contributors with Puneet Lath
Hosted by Charles Lowell and Taras Mankovski
Puneet Lath, Director of Research and Development at Expensify, talks about the unique way their company is open-sourcing the front end of their product itself.
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Product Roadmaps and Tooling Planning with Steve Pereira
Hosted by Charles Lowell and Taras Mankovski
Steve Pereira—the founder of Visible—talks about how his unique approach to mapping helps customers get products out of the door fast and efficiently.
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Data, Trust, and Transparency: A COVID-19 Vaccine Story
Hosted by Charles Lowell and Taras Mankovski
Data is at the center of everything we do. Yet, how can we trust it in a world where more "organic" food is consumed than produced? In this episode, Jason Kelley—the Global General Manager for Blockchain Services at IBM—talks about how data trust and transparency are applied to COVID-19 vaccines.
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Type systems with ReasonML London organizer Marcel Cutts and Shane Wilson
Hosted by Charles Lowell
"Java has done an excellent job at ruining types for everyone for quite a while—explains Marcel after describing the tech pub scene in London—but it's important to know there's more than one kind of type system." Along with Shane, they outline what's exciting about ReasonML and their experience with new languages and tools around types.
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Intro to Rush.js with co-author Pete Gonzales
Hosted by Charles Lowell, Taras Mankovski
Monorepos are the new muse of library maintainers, but what happens when your project grows past 100 packages in the same repo? What about thousands? Rush.js was created for those cases, and Pete—who started the project while working at Microsoft—is here to tell us about it.
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