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The Flagsmith Backstage Plugin brings feature flag observability directly into your Backstage developer portal. It provides three components:

  • Feature Flags Tab — A full-page table listing all flags, their tags, and environment states.
  • Overview Card — A quick summary of your feature flags for entity overview pages.
  • Usage Card — A chart showing flag usage metrics over time.

A canvas displaying all components of the Flagsmith Backstage plugin

Integrate with Backstage​

1. Install the plugin​

Install the plugin from your Backstage app root:

yarn --cwd packages/app add @flagsmith/backstage-plugin

2. Configure the proxy​

Add the Flagsmith proxy configuration to your app-config.yaml:

proxy:
endpoints:
'/flagsmith':
target: 'https://api.flagsmith.com/api/v1'
headers:
Authorization: Api-Key FLAGSMITH_API_TOKEN
  • FLAGSMITH_API_TOKEN: obtain from Organisation Settings > API Keys in Flagsmith.
  • If you are self-hosting Flagsmith, replace the target URL with your own Flagsmith API address, e.g. https://flagsmith.example.com/api/v1.
note

Enterprise users: when generating the Organisation API key, select permissions View Project and View Environment, so that Backstage can see your Environments and Features in Flagsmith.

3. Set up entity annotation​

Annotate your entities in catalog-info.yaml so the plugin knows which Flagsmith project to display:

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
name: my-service
annotations:
flagsmith.com/project-id: 'PROJECT_ID'
spec:
type: service
owner: my-team
lifecycle: production
  • PROJECT_ID: obtain from the Flagsmith dashboard URL, e.g. /project/<id>/....

Add Components to Backstage​

Edit your packages/app/src/components/catalog/EntityPage.tsx to add the Flagsmith components.

Feature Flags Tab​

Import and add the FlagsTab as a new tab on your entity page:

import { FlagsTab } from '@flagsmith/backstage-plugin';

// Inside your entity page layout, add a new tab:
<EntityLayout.Route path="/feature-flags" title="Feature Flags">
<FlagsTab />
</EntityLayout.Route>;

A list of feature flags from Flagsmith along with their tags, and states per environment, displayed in Backstage

Click a feature in the list to reveal its usage graphs and detailed information:

The expanded Flagsmith feature, showing the details and usage metrics

Overview Card​

Add the FlagsmithOverviewCard to your entity overview page:

import { FlagsmithOverviewCard } from '@flagsmith/backstage-plugin';

// Inside your overview grid:
<Grid item md={6}>
<FlagsmithOverviewCard />
</Grid>;

A compact list of features displaying their states per environment

Usage Card​

Add the FlagsmithUsageCard to display flag usage metrics:

import { FlagsmithUsageCard } from '@flagsmith/backstage-plugin';

// Inside your overview grid:
<Grid item md={6}>
<FlagsmithUsageCard />
</Grid>;

A bar chart displaying the usage metrics for the past 30 days