Stack Overflow for Teams Search Backend Module

This module for the search plugin is an enhanced version of the original Stack Overflow collator. It provides additional information while coded to work specifically with Stack Overflow for Teams API Version 3.

Getting started

Before we begin, make sure:

• You have created your own standalone Backstage app using @backstage/create-app and not using a fork of the backstage repository. If you haven't setup Backstage already, start here.

To use any of the functionality this plugin provides, you need to start by configuring your App with the following config:

stackoverflow:
  baseUrl: https://api.stackoverflowteams.com # alternative: your Stack Overflow Enterprise site
  teamName: $STACK_OVERFLOW_TEAM_NAME # optional if you are on Enterprise
  apiAccessToken: $STACK_OVERFLOW_API_ACCESS_TOKEN

Stack Overflow for Teams

If you have a private Stack Overflow instance and/or a private Stack Overflow Team you will need to supply a Personal Access Token. You can read more about how to set this up by going to Stack Overflow's Help Page.

Areas of Responsibility

This stack overflow backend plugin is primarily responsible for the following:

• Provides a StackOverflowQuestionsCollatorFactory, which can be used in the search backend to index stack overflow questions to your Backstage Search.

Index Stack Overflow Questions to search

Before you are able to start index stack overflow questions to search, you need to go through the search getting started guide.

When you have your packages/backend/src/plugins/search.ts file ready to make modifications, add the following code snippet to add the StackOverflowQuestionsCollatorFactory. Note that you can optionally modify the requestParams, otherwise it will defaults to { order: 'desc', sort: 'activity' }.

indexBuilder.addCollator({
  schedule,
  factory: StackOverflowQuestionsCollatorFactory.fromConfig(env.config, {
    logger: env.logger,
    requestParams: {
      tagged: ['backstage'],
      pagesize: 100,
    },
  }),
});

New Backend System

This package exports a module that extends the search backend to also indexing the questions exposed by the Stack Overflow for Teams API version 3.

Installation

Add the module package as a dependency:

# From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/backend add backstage-stack-overflow-teams-collator

Add the collator to your backend instance, along with the search plugin itself:

// packages/backend/src/index.ts
import { createBackend } from '@backstage/backend-defaults';

const backend = createBackend();
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-search-backend'));
backend.add(
  import('backstage-stack-overflow-teams-collator'),
);
backend.start();

You may also want to add configuration parameters to your app-config, for example for controlling the scheduled indexing interval. These parameters should be placed under the stackoverflow key. See the config definition file for more details.