Introducing the Parseable Dataset Plugin for Backstage

We're excited to announce the release of the Parseable Dataset Plugin for Backstage – a powerful integration that brings unified observability capabilities of Parseable directly into your Backstage developer portal. This plugin seamlessly connects Parseable, the unified observability platform, with Backstage, Spotify's open-source developer portal framework.

Why Parseable + Backstage?

In modern microservices architectures, developers often struggle with context switching between multiple tools. They need to jump from their service catalog to logging platforms, from documentation to monitoring dashboards. This fragmentation slows down incident response and makes it harder to maintain a holistic view of service health.

The Parseable Dataset Plugin for Backstage solves this by embedding Parseable's plugin directly into your service catalog, creating a single pane of glass for developers to understand, monitor, and debug their services.

Key Features

Contextual Log Viewing

Access logs directly from your service entities in Backstage. If you can see the service, you can see its logs.

Real-Time Log Streaming

Watch logs flow in real-time with our live tail feature. Perfect for monitoring deployments or debugging active issues.

Flexible Deployment

Use the plugin in two ways:

• Entity Integration: Add log tabs to specific services
• Standalone Page: Access a centralized log viewer from the navigation

Secure Authentication

Supports basic authentication with environment-based credential management, keeping your log data secure.

Getting Started

Installation

Add the plugin to your Backstage app:

# From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/app add @parseable/backstage-plugin-logstream

Configuration

1. Configure credentials in app-config.yaml:

parseable:
  basicAuthCredential: ${PARSEABLE_B64_CRED}

2. Set environment variable:

# Create base64 encoded credentials
echo -n "username:password" | base64

# Export the credential
export PARSEABLE_B64_CRED="<your-base64-encoded-credential>"

3. Add to your App.tsx:

import { parseableLogstreamPlugin, ParseableLogstreamPage } from '@parseable/backstage-plugin-logstream';
// Add route
<Route path="/parseable-logs" element={<ParseableLogstreamPage />} />

4. Enable for entities:

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: my-service
  annotations:
    parseable.io/base-url: https://parseable.mycompany.com
spec:
  type: service
  lifecycle: production
  owner: team-backend

Real-World Use Cases

1. Incident Response

During an incident, developers can navigate to the affected service in Backstage and immediately access its logs without searching for the right Parseable dashboard or remembering log stream names.

2. Deployment Monitoring

Use the live tail feature to monitor logs during deployments, watching for errors or unexpected behavior as new code rolls out.

3. Historical Analysis

Export logs from specific time ranges to analyze patterns, create reports, or share data with stakeholders who don't have direct access to your logging infrastructure.

4. Cross-Service Debugging

The standalone page allows developers to quickly switch between different service logs when debugging issues that span multiple microservices.

Architecture Overview

The plugin follows Backstage's extension architecture:

┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│                 │     │                  │     │                 │
│  Backstage UI   │────▶│  Plugin API      │────▶│  Parseable API  │
│                 │     │                  │     │                 │
└─────────────────┘     └──────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘
         │                       │                         │
         ▼                       ▼                         ▼
   Entity Pages           Authentication          Telemetry Streams
   Navigation            Credential Mgmt             Data Export
   Live Updates           API Client                

What's Next?

We're committed to continuously improving the Parseable Backstage Plugin. Here's what's on our roadmap:

• Enhanced Visualizations: Charts and graphs for log patterns
• Alert Integration: Surface Parseable alerts in Backstage
• Saved Queries: Store and share common log queries
• Multi-cluster Support: Manage logs from multiple Parseable instances
• Performance Metrics: Display log ingestion rates and query performance

Contributing

The Parseable Backstage Plugin is open source and we welcome contributions! Whether it's bug fixes, new features, or documentation improvements, we'd love to have you involved.

• GitHub Repository: github.com/parseable/backstage-plugin-parseable
• Issues & Features: GitHub Issues

Ready to unify your observability with your developer portal? The Parseable Dataset Plugin for Backstage is available now on npm:

npm install @parseable/backstage-plugin-logstream

Quick Demo

Want to see it in action? Try it with our demo server:

# In your entity annotation
parseable.io/base-url: https://demo.parseable.com

Conclusion

The Parseable Dataset Plugin for Backstage represents our commitment to improving the developer experience in observability. By bringing observability directly into your service catalog, we're reducing context switches, speeding up debugging, and making it easier for teams to maintain their services.

We believe that observability tools should meet developers where they are and increasingly, that's in their developer portal. This plugin is just the beginning of our journey to make Parseable a natural extension of your existing development workflows.

Join our community:

• Parseable Slack
• Twitter/X