scaffolder-backend-module-http-request

Welcome to the http actions for the scaffolder-backend.

This contains one action: http:backstage:request.

The http:backstage:request action allows the task to call any of the backstage APIs available to the user that triggers it. The action takes care of passing the authentication token of the user to the task execution so that the action can perform actions on behalf of the user that triggers it.

Getting started

Create your Backstage application using the Backstage CLI as described here: https://backstage.io/docs/getting-started/create-an-app

Note: If you are using this plugin in a Backstage monorepo that contains the code for @backstage/plugin-scaffolder-backend, you need to modify your internal build processes to transpile files from the node_modules folder as well.

You need to configure the action in your backend:

From your Backstage root directory

cd packages/backend
yarn add @kozmoai/scaffolder-backend-module-http-request

Configure the action: (you can check the docs to see all options):

// packages/backend/src/plugins/scaffolder.ts
const actions = [
  createHttpBackstageAction({ discovery }),
  ...createBuiltinActions({
    containerRunner,
    integrations,
    config,
    catalogClient,
    reader,
  }),
];

return await createRouter({
  containerRunner,
  logger,
  config,
  database,
  catalogClient,
  reader,
  actions,
});

Supported methods

Action supports following HTTP methods: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, POST, UPDATE, DELETE, PUT, PATCH

The path should always point to a proxy entry with the following format: proxy/<proxy-path>/<external-api-path>

You can also point to the internal catalog apis like so: /catalog/entities See https://backstage.io/docs/features/software-catalog/software-catalog-api/#get-entities

i.e.: /proxy/snyk/org/<some-org>/projects or /proxy/circleci/api/projects (NB: the CircleCI proxy path is circleci/api/ but Snyk is just snyk/)

Example of using GET method

---
apiVersion: scaffolder.backstage.io/v1beta3
kind: Template
metadata:
  name: HTTP-testing
  title: Http testing for post/get
  description: Testing get functionality with get
spec:
  owner: glint
  type: service

  parameters:
    - title: Fill in some params
      properties:
        httpGetPath:
          title: Get Path
          type: string
          description: The path you want to get on your backstage instance
          ui:autofocus: true
          ui:options:
            rows: 5

  steps:
    - id: backstage_request
      name: backstage request
      action: http:backstage:request
      input:
        method: 'GET'
        path: '/proxy/snyk/org/<some-org>/project/<some-project-id>/aggregated-issues'
        headers:
          test: 'hello'
          foo: 'bar'

  output:
    getResponse: '{{ steps.backstage_request.output.body }}'
    getCode: '{{ steps.backstage_request.output.code }}'
    getHeaders: '{{ steps.backstage_request.output.headers }}'

Example of using POST method

If the request requires a body, it can be specified using the body parameter. There are two options here

1. content-type: application/json header is specified. Everything under body hash will be converted into JSON string
2. content-type: application/json header is not specified. body treated as a plain string

steps:
  - id: backstage_request
    name: backstage request
    action: http:backstage:request
    input:
      method: 'POST'
      path: '/proxy/snyk/org/<some-org>/project/<some-project-id>/aggregated-issues'
      headers:
        content-type: 'application/json'
      body:
        name: 'test'
        bar: 'foo'

output:
  getResponse: '{{ steps.backstage_request.output.body }}'
  getCode: '{{ steps.backstage_request.output.code }}'
  getHeaders: '{{ steps.backstage_request.output.headers }}'

Snippet above will send the following HTTP request:

--------  127.0.0.1:53321 | POST /
Headers
"Accept" : ["*/*"]
"Content-Type" : ["application/json"]
"Connection" : ["close"]
"User-Agent" : ["node-fetch/1.0 (+https://github.com/bitinn/node-fetch)"]
"Content-Length" : ["27"]
00000000  7b 22 6e 61 6d 65 22 3a  22 74 65 73 74 22 2c 22  |{"name":"test","|
00000010  62 61 72 22 3a 22 66 6f  6f 22 7d                 |bar":"foo"}|

You can also visit the /create/actions route in your Backstage application to find out more about the parameters this action accepts when it's installed to configure how you like.