@nospt/backstage-plugin-tech-radar-ng-backend

Backend plugin for the Tech Radar NG suite.

[!WARNING] BETA — This plugin is under active development. APIs, data models, and configuration options may change between versions.

Overview

This package provides the backend for the Tech Radar NG Backstage plugin suite. It includes:

• Scheduled Discovery — Automatically discovers technologies from GitHub on a configurable schedule using a 50/50 strategy (top scorers + trending).
• Temporal Metrics — Stores timestamped snapshots of stars and forks with percentage-change trend indicators.
• REST API — Exposes endpoints for segments, rings, candidates (with pagination/filtering), batch classification, and manual discovery triggers.
• Database Migrations — Automatic Knex migrations on startup (PostgreSQL or SQLite).
• DI Services — RadarMetricsService, RingsService, SegmentsService following the Backstage service-ref pattern.

Built with the New Backend System using createBackendPlugin and core DI services.

Installation

From your Backstage root:

yarn --cwd packages/backend add @nospt/backstage-plugin-tech-radar-ng-backend

Register the plugin:

// packages/backend/src/index.ts
const backend = createBackend();
backend.add(import('@nospt/backstage-plugin-tech-radar-ng-backend'));
backend.start();

Database migrations run automatically on startup.

Configuration

Add to your app-config.yaml:

techRadarNg:
  discovery:
    frequency: { hours: 2 } # How often to run discovery (default: 24h)
    timeout: { minutes: 15 } # Max discovery run duration
    initialDelay: { seconds: 5 } # Delay before first run (default: 60s)
  github:
    searchQueries:
      - 'AI OR ML OR "machine learning" OR "artificial intelligence"'
      - 'LLM OR "language model" OR GPT OR transformer'

See the full configuration reference for all options.

REST API

All endpoints are served under /api/tech-radar-ng.

| Method | Path | Description | | ------ | ---------------------- | --------------------------------------- | | GET | /segments | List all radar segments | | GET | /rings | List all radar rings | | PUT | /rings | Update ring definitions | | GET | /candidates | List candidates (paginated, filterable) | | PUT | /candidates/classify | Batch-update candidate classifications | | GET | /githubDiscovery | Manually trigger a discovery run |

For detailed request/response schemas, see the API reference.

Services

| Service | Ref | Description | | --------------------- | ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------- | | RadarMetricsService | radarMetricsServiceRef | Discovery engine, candidate CRUD, metrics snapshots | | RingsService | ringsServiceRef | Ring management | | SegmentsService | segmentsServiceRef | Segment management |

All services follow the Backstage DI pattern: interface → private constructor with static create() factory → createServiceRef / createServiceFactory.

Development

cd plugins/tech-radar-ng-backend
yarn start       # Start backend in development mode
yarn test        # Run tests
yarn lint        # Lint
yarn build       # Build for production

Related Packages

| Package | Description | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | | @nospt/backstage-plugin-tech-radar-ng | Frontend — Radar visualization and Back Office UI | | @nospt/backstage-plugin-tech-radar-ng-common | Shared types, Zod schemas, and enums |

License

Apache License 2.0