feat: pull catalog data and teams from GitHub#13
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Wire Backstage to source catalog data directly from GitHub so the portal reflects the org without hand-maintained entity lists. Key changes: - Add the GitHub discovery provider so any repo shipping a catalog-info.yaml is picked up automatically, and the GitHub org provider so org members and teams import as User/Group entities (ownership refs resolve to real teams) - Register both catalog backend modules; they stay dormant until provider config is supplied, so local dev and e2e are unaffected - Document the GitHub App integration alongside the local PAT, using the GITHUB_APP_* credentials the external-secrets component already projects Provider and App config are commented in the base app-config and enabled per-environment from the deploy overlay, matching the datumGateway auth pattern. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NMSkwUcaTmZr7S5XmV2aFG
ecv
approved these changes
Jul 1, 2026
ecv
approved these changes
Jul 1, 2026
scotwells
marked this pull request as ready for review
July 1, 2026 18:48
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Why
Today the catalog is populated from hand-assembled entity lists. That doesn't scale and drifts from reality the moment a team ships something. This connects Backstage to GitHub so the portal reflects the org automatically: services describe themselves in-repo, and ownership comes from real GitHub teams.
This is the "how service descriptors are discovered" and "org/team → owner mapping" work from the catalog bootstrap effort.
What this enables
catalog-info.yamlis picked up and kept in sync, no central list to maintain. This is what makes the "each service owns its own descriptor" model viable.User/Groupentities, soowner:on a component resolves to an actual team with members instead of a placeholder group.How it's wired
catalog.providers.*and stay dormant until that config is supplied, so local dev and e2e are unchanged.app-configand are enabled per-environment from the deploy overlay — the same pattern as thedatumGatewayauth provider.external-secretscomponent (backstage-github-app→GITHUB_APP_*).Validation
backstage-cli config:check— passesyarn tsc— passesyarn workspace backend lint— passesEnablement (follow-up)
Turning discovery on in an environment is a config flip in the deploy overlay (uncomment the
catalog.providersandintegrations.github.appsblocks). That is intentionally a separate step so this change can land without altering any running environment; enable it once the GitHub App is installed on the org.Notes
Discovery only pulls repos that contain a
catalog-info.yaml; the generated/derived slice (deployed state, cross-system edges) continues to come from the infra-side catalog bundle. The two sources merge by entity ref.Part of the catalog bootstrap: datum-cloud/infra#2967
Builds on #1 (scaffold), #10 (deployable bundle base), #11 (gateway sign-in)