Backstage
Backstage is an open-source developer portal platform created by Spotify. It provides a centralized software catalog, software templates (scaffolder), TechDocs, and a plugin ecosystem for building customizable developer portals. Backstage helps organizations manage their software ecosystem by cataloging services, APIs, resources, and infrastructure, and provides tooling for creating new projects from templates.
Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.
API Evangelist profiles Backstage the way a machine reads it — 95 machine-readable artifacts across 13 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Backstage scores 58.4/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 54/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
How we profile Backstage
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Backstage. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 13
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
Backstage Events System
The Backstage Events system provides a publish-subscribe mechanism for broadcasting and consuming events within a Backstage instance. It enables plugins to emit events when sign...
Backstage Actions API
Endpoints for listing available scaffolder actions.
Backstage Authentication API
The Authentication API from Backstage — 4 operation(s) for authentication.
Backstage Authorization API
The Authorization API from Backstage — 2 operation(s) for authorization.
Backstage Documentation API
The Documentation API from Backstage — 2 operation(s) for documentation.
Backstage Entities API
Endpoints for managing and querying catalog entities.
Backstage Locations API
Endpoints for managing catalog locations (entity sources).
Backstage Metadata API
The Metadata API from Backstage — 2 operation(s) for metadata.
Backstage Search API
The Search API from Backstage — 1 operation(s) for search.
Backstage Sync API
The Sync API from Backstage — 1 operation(s) for sync.
Backstage Tasks API
Endpoints for creating and managing scaffolder tasks.
Backstage Templates API
Endpoints for template metadata and parameter schemas.
Backstage Token Verification API
The Token Verification API from Backstage — 1 operation(s) for token verification.
Scroll within the panel for all 13 ·
Open Collections 6
Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.
Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).
Backstage Auth API
OPEN COLLECTIONBackstage Catalog API
OPEN COLLECTIONBackstage Permissions API
OPEN COLLECTIONBackstage Scaffolder API
OPEN COLLECTIONBackstage Search API
OPEN COLLECTIONBackstage TechDocs API
OPEN COLLECTIONPricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Backstage Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Backstage Finops
FINOPSFeatures 7
The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.
Notable capabilities this provider offers.
Software Catalog
Central inventory of all software components, APIs, resources, systems, domains, groups, and users.
Software Templates (Scaffolder)
Bootstrap new projects, services, and components from customizable templates.
TechDocs
Render and serve MkDocs-based technical documentation alongside catalog entities.
Plugin Ecosystem
Extensible plugin architecture with 100+ open-source plugins for CI/CD, monitoring, cloud, and more.
Search
Full-text search across catalog entities, TechDocs, and any other indexed content.
Permissions Framework
Policy-based authorization with conditional rules for resource-level access control.
Entity Relations
Model ownership, dependencies, and API consumption relationships between services.
Scroll within the panel for all 7 ·
Event Specifications 1
Not every API is request/response. AsyncAPI describes the event-driven and streaming side — the webhooks and channels — so the asynchronous half of the interface is documented the same way the synchronous half is.
AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.
Backstage Events System
The Backstage Events system provides a publish-subscribe mechanism for broadcasting and consuming events within a Backstage instance. It enables plugins to emit events when sign...
ASYNCAPISemantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Backstage Context
JSON-LDSpectral Rules 3
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
JSON Schema 16
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
AuthResponse
JSON SCHEMAJwksResponse
JSON SCHEMABackstage Catalog Entity
JSON SCHEMAEntityMetadata
JSON SCHEMAEntityRelation
JSON SCHEMAEntity
JSON SCHEMALocation
JSON SCHEMAConditionalRequest
JSON SCHEMAPermissionDecision
JSON SCHEMAPermissionRequest
JSON SCHEMAAction
JSON SCHEMATask
JSON SCHEMASearchDocument
JSON SCHEMASearchResult
JSON SCHEMASearchResultSet
JSON SCHEMATechDocsMetadata
JSON SCHEMAScroll within the panel for all 16 ·
JSON Structure 16
JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.
JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.
Auth Auth Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREAuth Jwks Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBackstage Entity Structure
JSON STRUCTURECatalog Entity Metadata Structure
JSON STRUCTURECatalog Entity Relation Structure
JSON STRUCTURECatalog Entity Structure
JSON STRUCTURECatalog Location Structure
JSON STRUCTUREPermissions Conditional Request Structure
JSON STRUCTUREPermissions Permission Decision Structure
JSON STRUCTUREPermissions Permission Request Structure
JSON STRUCTUREScaffolder Action Structure
JSON STRUCTUREScaffolder Task Structure
JSON STRUCTURESearch Search Document Structure
JSON STRUCTURESearch Search Result Set Structure
JSON STRUCTURESearch Search Result Structure
JSON STRUCTURETechdocs Tech Docs Metadata Structure
JSON STRUCTUREScroll within the panel for all 16 ·
Examples 16
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Auth Auth Response Example
EXAMPLEAuth Jwks Response Example
EXAMPLEBackstage Entity Example
EXAMPLECatalog Entity Example
EXAMPLECatalog Location Example
EXAMPLEScaffolder Action Example
EXAMPLEScaffolder Task Example
EXAMPLESearch Search Result Example
EXAMPLEScroll within the panel for all 16 ·
Security Posture 2
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Agentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Use Cases 4
What developers actually build with this provider — captured so the catalogue answers 'what is this for', not just 'what does this expose'.
What developers build with this provider.
Internal Developer Portal
Build a unified portal for developers to discover services, read docs, and scaffold projects.
Service Catalog
Maintain a complete, up-to-date inventory of all microservices, APIs, and infrastructure.
Developer Onboarding
Accelerate new developer onboarding with self-service project scaffolding and documentation.
API Governance
Track all internal and external APIs, their owners, and documentation in one place.
Integrations 6
Pre-built integrations with other platforms tell you where this provider already fits in a stack.
Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.
GitHub
Catalog ingestion from GitHub repos, GitHub Actions integration for CI/CD visibility.
PagerDuty
Show on-call information and incident status on catalog entity pages.
Kubernetes
Display Kubernetes workload status for catalog entities.
Prometheus
Show metrics and alerts for services directly in the catalog.
Snyk
Display security vulnerability information for catalog entities.
Datadog
Surface monitoring dashboards within Backstage.
Resources
Every other property we hold for Backstage — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Get Started 1
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 2
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 3
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Build 3
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Access & Security 2
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 2
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Company 3
The organization behind the API
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/backstage · machine-readable index on apis.io