🏗️ Backstage.io MCP Server

Service Catalog Integration

Connect to Backstage.io service catalog for comprehensive service discovery, documentation, and platform engineering insights.

Backstage.io Capabilities

Enterprise platform engineering and service catalog features

🏗️ Service Catalog

  • Browse and search service registry
  • Access service documentation and APIs
  • View service dependencies and relationships
  • Track service ownership and contacts

📊 Platform Insights

  • Service health and monitoring data
  • Deployment and release information
  • Infrastructure and resource utilization
  • Platform adoption metrics

🔧 Developer Tools

  • Software templates and scaffolding
  • CI/CD pipeline information
  • Tech stack and tool recommendations
  • Development environment setup

Step-by-Step Setup

Follow these steps to connect to your Backstage.io instance

Step 1: Install the Backstage MCP Server

Install the Backstage MCP server on your development machine:

# Install the Backstage MCP server
npm install -g @mcp/backstage-server

# Verify installation
mcp --version

Step 2: Get Backstage Access Token (Ask Your Platform Team)

Contact your platform engineering team for Backstage access. You'll need:

  • Backstage Instance URL (e.g., https://backstage.company.com)
  • API Token (for authentication with the Backstage API)
  • Namespace/Organization (your company's namespace in Backstage)
  • Entity filters (optional, to limit access to specific services/components)

Tell your platform team you need:

  • Read access to the service catalog
  • Access to API documentation and specifications
  • Permission to view service dependencies and relationships
  • Access to software templates (if needed)

Step 3: Configure Backstage Connection

Set up the connection using your credentials:

# Set your credentials (replace with actual values from platform team)
export BACKSTAGE_URL="https://backstage.company.com"
export BACKSTAGE_TOKEN="your-backstage-token-here"
export BACKSTAGE_NAMESPACE="company"

# Configure the MCP server
mcp config backstage \
  --url $BACKSTAGE_URL \
  --token $BACKSTAGE_TOKEN \
  --namespace $BACKSTAGE_NAMESPACE \
  --readonly

Step 4: Test Your Connection

Verify everything is working:

# Test the connection
mcp test backstage

# Verify catalog access
mcp auth verify backstage

# If successful, you should see:
# ✅ Backstage connection successful
# ✅ Service catalog access verified
# ✅ API permissions confirmed

Step 5: Configure Service Filters (Optional)

If you want to focus on specific services or components:

# Filter by specific service types
mcp config backstage filters add \
  --kind "Component" \
  --type "service,website,library"

# Filter by ownership
mcp config backstage filters add \
  --owner "team-backend,team-frontend"

# Filter by lifecycle stage
mcp config backstage filters add \
  --lifecycle "production,experimental"

Usage Examples

Access Backstage service catalog through Copilot and MCP integration

Method 1: Ask GitHub Copilot (Recommended)

In your IDE with GitHub Copilot, you can ask natural language questions:

Example questions you can ask Copilot:

  • "List all microservices in production from our service catalog"
  • "Find API documentation for the authentication service"
  • "Show me the dependencies for the payment service"
  • "What services are owned by the backend team?"
  • "Find all services that depend on the user database"
  • "Show me the latest software templates available"

Copilot will automatically query your Backstage catalog and provide service information!

Method 2: Direct MCP Commands

You can also query Backstage directly from your terminal:

Query service catalog:

mcp query backstage "list all microservices in production"

Find service documentation:

mcp query backstage "find API documentation for authentication service"

Get service dependencies:

mcp query backstage "show dependencies for payment-service"

Search by owner:

mcp query backstage "list all services owned by team-backend"