Building and running Backstage Software Templates: authoring, custom actions, testing, publishing to each Git platform, access control and measuring their value.
Structuring a template.yaml that teams will actually use: parameter forms and validation, step order, fetching skeletons, publishing and registering the new component, and output links shown on success.
When built-in actions are not enough: createTemplateAction, zod schemas, registering through a backend module, naming actions to avoid collisions, and documenting them with examples under /create/actions.
Testing templates without creating repositories or webhooks: dry-run support in actions, ctx.isDryRun checks, unit tests for handlers and a review process before templates reach every developer.
Publishing new services to GitHub or GitHub Enterprise: the GitHub action module, GitHub App versus token credentials, repository settings, branch protection and registering the result in the catalog.
Publishing to self-managed GitLab or gitlab.com: the GitLab action module, group and project placement, merge requests for changes to existing repositories and token scopes.
Creating repositories in Azure DevOps Services or Azure DevOps Server from a template: the Azure action module, credentials, and pairing repositories with pipelines.
Choosing the right Bitbucket action module for cloud or self-hosted Bitbucket, project and repository placement, and credentials for each.
Scaffolding into self-hosted Gitea or Gerrit with their action modules, and what changes in the template compared with GitHub or GitLab.
Limiting templates that create cloud resources or repositories to the right teams: default open access, the permission framework for templates and actions, and restricting who may register Template entities.
Putting a number on template value: the backstage.io/time-saved annotation, counting runs from the task list and scaffolder metrics, and reporting results to the people funding the platform.
Designing actions that can be retried after a failure without creating duplicates: checkpoints, cancellation through abort signals, and Start Over runs with pre-filled parameters.
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