hackstage — Stadt Wien Corporate Design for Backstage

A drop-in Backstage frontend plugin that turns any vanilla Backstage instance into a Stadt Wien branded developer portal — colours, Wiener Melange typography, branded sidebar, and fully bidirectional German/English translations for the core plugins.

Walkthrough video

▶ Download / play the full walkthrough (MP4, 72 s, 6.4 MB)

GitHub renders the video inline in its repo view but not in every Markdown renderer — if the <video> tag doesn't show, use the download link.

Stills from the walkthrough

Catalog page on default German — sidebar Katalog / Erstellen / APIs / Katalog-Diagramm / Dokumentation / OpenShift / Benachrichtigungen / Bestehende Komponente registrieren / Visualisierung / Einstellungen, red Wien Rot Erstellen button, Stadt Wien Katalog page title, German filter panel.

/docs page with a fully translated empty state — "Keine Dokumente vorhanden / Erstellen Sie Ihr eigenes Dokument. Sehen Sie sich dazu unsere Einstiegs-Information an." + red Dokumentation button. The upstream Backstage version hard-codes this in JSX literals; wien-cd replaces the whole page.

The exact same app after toggling the language dropdown in Settings → Appearance to English. Sidebar, filter panel, table column headings, page title, and the Create button all flip — no app reload, no code change, and it flips back again bidirectionally.

Why we did what we did (technical rationale)

Vanilla Backstage ships with:

a teal/dark default theme whose palette doesn't match the wien.gv.at Corporate Design;
system fonts (Roboto / system-ui), not the City of Vienna's Wiener Melange variable font;
English-only UI strings for almost every plugin. Even the strings that are wired through @backstage/frontend-plugin-api translation refs have no public German bundle;
a generic sidebar with no way to inject a Stadt Wien Wappen or wordmark without forking the app shell;
hard-coded JSX literals in a few plugins — the Techdocs empty state is a famous one — where "translating" through the i18n system is impossible.

Rather than solve all of this inside the app (which would couple branding to one specific deployment and rot as we pulled in Backstage updates), we extracted the entire Stadt Wien identity into a reusable frontend plugin (@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd) that:

is a real Backstage frontend-plugin (using createFrontendPlugin + createFrontendModule + the appropriate *Blueprint extensions), so Backstage's auto-discovery, extension system and app-config.yaml overrides all work as intended;
splits responsibilities between wienCdPlugin (things that attach anywhere) and wienCdAppModule (attaches to the core app plugin, because the theme / translation / nav-content inputs upstream are marked internal: true);
owns a dedicated wienCdTranslationRef for everything that no upstream translation ref covers (sidebar group labels, NavItem title overrides, the techdocs empty state). Both English defaults and German overrides live in the package, so the language toggle under Settings → Appearance switches all of it bidirectionally — not just the upstream-covered pieces;
registers replacement pages (currently just page:app/wien-techdocs) for the small set of pages whose strings are JSX-hard-coded upstream. We disable the upstream page via app-config.yaml, mount our version on the same path, reuse the upstream routeRef so links keep resolving.

Net result: a consuming Backstage app can keep the wien-cd plugin up to date with yarn up, and upstream Backstage upgrades keep working without us needing to babysit local forks.

What we've done

The plugin, `@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd`

Lives in my-backstage-app/plugins/wien-cd/. Ships two themes, the Wiener Melange font, a branded sidebar, a dedicated translation ref, a Stadt Wien replacement for the Techdocs index page, and German translation bundles for 13 upstream Backstage plugins.

Extension id	Kind	What it does
`theme:…/wien-light` (AppTheme id `light`)	theme	Wien CD light theme. Labels in Settings → Appearance come from `userSettings` i18n (DE: „Wien (hell)“, EN: „Light“). Palette: Wien Rot `#ff0000`, Abendstimmung `#49274b`, Nebelgrau Light `#f3f1ef`.
`theme:…/wien-dark` (AppTheme id `dark`)	theme	Wien CD dark theme (same palette on `#1b1b1b`). Labels: DE „Wien (dunkel)“, EN „Dark“.
`translation:app/*-de` (14 extensions)	translation	German message bundles for `user-settings`, `catalog`, `catalog-react`, `scaffolder`, `scaffolder-react`, `api-docs`, `catalog-graph`, `catalog-import`, `notifications`, `search`, `search-react`, `org`, `core-components`, and our own `wien-cd-de`.
`translation:app/wien-cd-de`	translation	German for the strings no upstream ref covers: sidebar group labels (Suche / Menü / Einstellungen), the `NotificationsSidebarItem` text, NavItem title overrides for every registered page, and the Techdocs empty-state text.
`nav-content:app/wien-sidebar`	nav-content	Replaces the default Backstage sidebar. Renders the Wiener Wappen + wordmark, three groups (search modal, menu, settings), notifications item. Title/subtitle are configurable via `app-config.yaml`.
`page:app/wien-techdocs`	page	Drop-in replacement for `page:techdocs` (disabled via config). Reuses all the upstream `EntityListProvider` + catalog filters + `EntityListDocsTable`, but short-circuits on 0 entities to render a fully translated `<EmptyState>`.
`app-root-element:wien-cd/wiener-melange-font`	app-root-element	`@font-face` injector. Wiener Melange variable font (~30 KB woff2) is embedded as an inline base64 data URI, so no asset hosting on the consumer side.

The plugin exports

Stable API (@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd):

import {
  // Raw UnifiedTheme objects for programmatic use (Storybook etc.)
  wienLightTheme, wienDarkTheme,
  // Palette + font stack
  wienColors, wienFontStack,
  // The plugin's own translation ref + a key-slug helper
  wienCdTranslationRef, slugifyNavItemId,
  // German resources keyed by plugin (for legacy Backstage apps that
  // still use `createApp({ translations: ... })` from the old API)
  wienGermanTranslations,
  // Reusable UI components
  WienerWappen, WienSidebarLogoFull, WienSidebarLogo,
} from '@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd';

Frontend-system API (@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd/alpha):

import {
  wienCdFeatures,      // [wienCdPlugin, wienCdAppModule] — spread into createApp
  wienCdPlugin,        // just the font loader
  wienCdAppModule,     // themes + translations + sidebar + docs page
} from '@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd/alpha';

The app

my-backstage-app/packages/app/src is down to 42 LOC across four files (App.tsx, App.test.tsx, index.tsx, setupTests.ts). No Wien-specific code. All it does is wire the features in:

// packages/app/src/App.tsx — the entire Wien integration
import { createApp } from '@backstage/frontend-defaults';
import catalogPlugin from '@backstage/plugin-catalog/alpha';
import { wienCdFeatures } from '@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd/alpha';

export default createApp({
  features: [catalogPlugin, ...wienCdFeatures],
});

How to add it to your own Backstage

1. Install the plugin

# npmjs.com (once published)
yarn workspace app add @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd

# or from the Stadt Wien internal registry
yarn workspace app add @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd --registry https://npm.stadt-wien.gv.at

# or from a tarball (air-gapped / quick test)
yarn workspace app add file:./stadt-wien-backstage-plugin-cd-0.3.0.tgz

A ready-built tarball is at docs/assets/ in release notes / this repo's artifacts. You can also build your own with yarn workspace @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd pack.

2. Wire it into `App.tsx`

import { createApp } from '@backstage/frontend-defaults';
import catalogPlugin from '@backstage/plugin-catalog/alpha';
import { wienCdFeatures } from '@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd/alpha';

export default createApp({
  features: [catalogPlugin, ...wienCdFeatures],
});

3. Add the config block to `app-config.yaml`

app:
  title: Wien Developer Portal   # optional — change to your deployment's name
  extensions:
    # Replace the default Backstage light/dark themes with Stadt Wien.
    - theme:app/light: false
    - theme:app/dark: false

    # Enable the language toggle under Settings → Appearance.
    - api:app/app-language:
        config:
          availableLanguages: [de, en]
          defaultLanguage: de

    # Suppress the auto-generated NavItems the branded sidebar renders
    # in its own groups (avoids duplicate entries).
    - nav-item:search: false
    - nav-item:catalog: false
    - nav-item:scaffolder: false
    - nav-item:user-settings: false

    # Replace the upstream techdocs index with the Wien one so the
    # empty state is fully translatable.
    - page:techdocs: false

    # Wordmark rendered next to the Wiener Wappen in the sidebar.
    - nav-content:app/wien-sidebar:
        config:
          title: Wien
          subtitle: Developer Portal

organization:
  name: Stadt Wien

That's it. yarn start — the portal loads in Wien Rot with Wiener Melange, the sidebar shows German labels, the Settings → Appearance card has a Deutsch / English language dropdown and two Wien theme buttons.

Required Backstage versions

Component	Minimum version	Why
Backstage	1.36	The plugin is built on the new frontend system (`createFrontendPlugin` + `NavContentBlueprint` + `ThemeBlueprint` + `TranslationBlueprint`). The legacy `createApp` from `@backstage/app-defaults` can still use the raw theme objects (`wienLightTheme`, `wienDarkTheme`) and the `wienGermanTranslations` map programmatically, but will not get the auto-discovery / branded sidebar features.
`@backstage/frontend-plugin-api`	`^0.16.0`	Provides `createFrontendPlugin`, `createFrontendModule`, `PageBlueprint`, `NavContentBlueprint`, `TranslationBlueprint`, `useTranslationRef`, `createTranslationRef`.
`@backstage/plugin-app-react`	`^0.2.0`	`ThemeBlueprint`, `TranslationBlueprint`, `NavContentBlueprint`.
`@backstage/theme`	`^0.7.0`	`createUnifiedTheme`, `UnifiedThemeProvider`, `genPageTheme`.
`zod`	`^4.0.0`	Backstage's `configSchema` option requires a Standard-Schema-compatible zod with JSON Schema conversion. The `zod/v4` subpath export from zod v3 does NOT satisfy this; you need the real zod v4 package.
React / React DOM	`17` or `18`	Peer dependency of `@backstage/core-components`.
Node	`22` or `24`	Backstage 1.36+ drops Node 20 support.

Tested against Backstage 1.50.0 (what's in this monorepo today).

Customisation — how to change branding/labels yourself

Everything user-configurable goes into app-config.yaml. Component code in the plugin is structured so that you never need to fork the plugin for typical branding tweaks.

Change the sidebar logo wordmark

app:
  extensions:
    - nav-content:app/wien-sidebar:
        config:
          title: Wien
          subtitle: Developer Portal

Both fields are optional; omit subtitle for a one-line wordmark.

Change the app title (shown in the browser tab)

app:
  title: Wien Entwicklerportal

Change / add German translations

Each plugin-specific bundle lives in my-backstage-app/plugins/wien-cd/src/i18n/messages/<plugin>.ts:

plugins/wien-cd/src/i18n/
├── deMessages.ts                  # aggregates all bundles into wienGermanTranslations
├── translations.ts                # TranslationBlueprint extensions
├── wienCdTranslationRef.ts        # our own ref — sidebar + NavItem title overrides + techdocs empty state
└── messages/
    ├── apiDocs.ts
    ├── catalog.ts
    ├── catalogGraph.ts
    ├── catalogImport.ts
    ├── catalogReact.ts
    ├── coreComponents.ts
    ├── notifications.ts
    ├── org.ts
    ├── scaffolder.ts
    ├── scaffolderReact.ts
    ├── search.ts
    ├── userSettings.ts
    └── wienCdDe.ts                # German for the wienCdTranslationRef itself

To fix a wording, edit the relevant file (each one maps upstream keys → German strings), run yarn workspace @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd build and publish a new plugin version. TypeScript enforces that only keys from the upstream createTranslationRef are allowed — typos fail the build.

Change the sidebar layout (groups, order, icons, which NavItems show)

The sidebar is my-backstage-app/plugins/wien-cd/src/nav/WienSidebarContent.tsx. It's a normal React component — fork the plugin or ship a second module that replaces the nav-content:app/wien-sidebar extension.

Two non-forking escape hatches:

Per-plugin NavItem titles are served by wienCdTranslationRef.navItemTitles.*. Adding a new page_<pluginId>: "..." to wienCdTranslationRef.ts + wienCdDe.ts is enough for most new plugins.
If you want to completely skip the branded sidebar (e.g. to use Backstage's default), disable the extension: - nav-content:app/wien-sidebar: false in app-config.yaml.

Change the Wiener Wappen / Wordmark component (for standalone pages, Storybook)

import { WienerWappen, WienSidebarLogoFull } from '@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd';

<WienerWappen size={48} color="#ff0000" />
<WienSidebarLogoFull title="Wien" subtitle="Developer Portal" />

Disable the embedded font (if you want to self-host)

app:
  extensions:
    - app-root-element:wien-cd/wiener-melange-font: false

…and add your own @font-face to packages/app/public/index.html.

Consume the raw theme objects outside Backstage

For Storybook, email templates, admin tools, etc.:

import { UnifiedThemeProvider } from '@backstage/theme';
import { wienLightTheme, wienDarkTheme } from '@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd';

<UnifiedThemeProvider theme={wienLightTheme}>{children}</UnifiedThemeProvider>

Translation coverage

The plugin ships German translation bundles for 13 upstream Backstage plugins plus its own wienCdTranslationRef. As of release 0.3.0, every translatable key from every covered upstream ref has a German equivalent — measured by plugins/wien-cd/scripts/coverage.cjs:

Plugin	Keys	Translated	Coverage
`@backstage/core-components`	56	56	100%
`@backstage/plugin-user-settings`	50	50	100%
`@backstage/plugin-catalog`	92	92	100%
`@backstage/plugin-catalog-react`	92	92	100%
`@backstage/plugin-catalog-graph`	21	21	100%
`@backstage/plugin-catalog-import`	66	66	100%
`@backstage/plugin-scaffolder`	181	181	100%
`@backstage/plugin-scaffolder-react`	18	18	100%
`@backstage/plugin-api-docs`	29	29	100%
`@backstage/plugin-search`	7	7	100%
`@backstage/plugin-search-react`	11	11	100%
`@backstage/plugin-org`	22	22	100%
`@backstage/plugin-notifications`	59	59	100%
Total	704	704	100%

The same script is wired into the Jest suite as a coverage gate: when an upstream Backstage release adds a new key, the next yarn workspace @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd test run fails with a clear "missing German text" error so the bundle can't drift quietly. Run it on demand with:

yarn workspace @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd i18n:coverage         # report only
yarn workspace @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd i18n:coverage:check   # fail if <100%

Known limitations

A small handful of strings in the upstream Backstage plugins are not routed through any translation ref and therefore stay English even with the language toggle on Deutsch. We document them here rather than pretend they're solved:

TechDocs reader page — the Markdown viewer is rendered by the underlying MkDocs theme. The toolbar tooltips and the "Edit this page" link come from MkDocs HTML, not from Backstage. Outside the plugin's scope.
Catalog table titles of the form "Owned Components (3)" — the kind ("Components") is pluralized by lodash/pluralize from a runtime filter value and bypasses every translation ref. Translating it requires forking the entire CatalogTable component or registering a replacement page; not done.
Scaffolder sub-page tab titles ("Templates / Tasks / Actions / Template Editor / Templating Extensions") — hard-coded JSX literals in @backstage/plugin-scaffolder. We override them statically to German via page:scaffolder/<sub>.config.title in app-config.yaml. Trade-off: the titles do not flip when the user toggles the language. Acceptable for Stadt-Wien-internal use; flag for any partner-facing deployment.

Open tasks — to get it "enterprise ready"

The plugin is production-ready for Stadt-Wien-internal use. The following items would be needed before shipping to external partners or publishing on public npm:

Distribution / publishing

Real publish pipeline. The package is publishable (yarn workspace @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd pack works and produces a ~119 KB tarball with the correct exports/typesVersions), but nothing pushes it to a registry. Decide: public npm, GitHub Packages inside the @stadt-wien org, Artifactory, or Verdaccio. Then wire yarn changeset publish into a GitHub Actions release job.
Typography license handling. The Wiener Melange font is embedded in the package. This is fine for Stadt Wien / partner use but would need an explicit written redistribution license from markenmanagement@ma53.wien.gv.at before uploading to public npmjs.com. An alternative "no-font" public build can strip the data URI and fall back to @font-face pointing at https://assets.wien.gv.at/....
Font license legal review. Same deal; see plugins/wien-cd/LICENSE note.

Tests

Today: 1 App.test.tsx smoke render + 9 plugin unit tests (palette, themes, translation ref, slug helper, full coverage gate). That's enough to catch crashes and key drift; it's not enough to catch visible-behaviour regressions.
Add: a Playwright-based i18n integration test that logs in, flips to English, flips back, and diffs the sidebar + Docs empty-state DOM. This is what we run manually today through computerUse; it should be codified.
Add: visual-regression screenshots (Chromatic / Percy) on the catalog, entity, docs pages in both themes, both languages.

Config surface / DX polish

Config schema for app-config.yaml is only loosely typed (app.extensions: unknown[]). Declare the exact shape of nav-content:app/wien-sidebar.config and the opt-out flags in config.d.ts so yarn start errors on typos.
Sidebar order is currently hard-coded in WienSidebarContent.tsx. Could move to config: wienCd.sidebar.groups: [...] with a YAML-driven ordering.
Brand tokens as CSS variables. Expose the Wien palette through :root { --wien-rot: #ff0000; ... } so app-level CSS/CSS-modules can consume them without importing wienColors from TypeScript.

Security / supply chain

SBOM (syft / cyclonedx) generation on release.
Provenance attestation (npm's sigstore-based provenance) once we publish.
Dependency health — no renovate/dependabot setup for the plugin workspace yet.

Repository layout

Path	Purpose
`my-backstage-app/plugins/wien-cd/`	The distributable plugin (sources, build config, README, LICENSE).
`my-backstage-app/packages/app/`	A vanilla Backstage app that consumes the plugin. Demonstrates the full minimal integration — 42 lines of app code.
`my-backstage-app/packages/backend/`	Backstage backend. Unchanged by wien-cd (server-side has no opinion on branding).
`my-backstage-app/deploy/`	Docker-Compose, Kubernetes, OpenShift manifests and an install script. Original OpenShift Local documentation moved to `my-backstage-app/deploy/README.md`.
`docs/assets/`	Hero media (walkthrough video, screenshots) referenced from this README.

Contacts

Plugin maintainer: this repository (adis-b/hackstage)
Stadt Wien Markenmanagement (font & brand licensing): markenmanagement@ma53.wien.gv.at
Wien CD Manual: https://www.wien.gv.at/spezial/cd-manual/
Wien Handbuch Farben: https://handbuch.wien.gv.at/look-and-feel/farben/
Wien Handbuch Typografie: https://handbuch.wien.gv.at/look-and-feel/typography/

License

Code: Apache-2.0 (see my-backstage-app/plugins/wien-cd/LICENSE).
Wiener Melange typeface: proprietary, © Stadt Wien. Use outside Stadt Wien / City of Vienna projects requires written permission from markenmanagement@ma53.wien.gv.at.

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hackstage — Stadt Wien Corporate Design for Backstage

Walkthrough video

Stills from the walkthrough

Why we did what we did (technical rationale)

What we've done

The plugin, @stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd

The plugin exports

The app

How to add it to your own Backstage

1. Install the plugin

2. Wire it into App.tsx

3. Add the config block to app-config.yaml

Required Backstage versions

Customisation — how to change branding/labels yourself

Change the sidebar logo wordmark

Change the app title (shown in the browser tab)

Change / add German translations

Change the sidebar layout (groups, order, icons, which NavItems show)

Change the Wiener Wappen / Wordmark component (for standalone pages, Storybook)

Disable the embedded font (if you want to self-host)

Consume the raw theme objects outside Backstage

Translation coverage

Known limitations

Open tasks — to get it "enterprise ready"

Distribution / publishing

Tests

Config surface / DX polish

Security / supply chain

Repository layout

Contacts

License

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Languages

The plugin, `@stadt-wien/backstage-plugin-cd`

2. Wire it into `App.tsx`

3. Add the config block to `app-config.yaml`

Packages