AI Assistants for Backstage

Chat assistants that answer from your catalog and TechDocs, and run Backstage actions and MCP tools as the signed-in user. Admins build them in-app.

What it does

• Answers from your catalog and docs. Assistants search the catalog and TechDocs and read the pages they find. The semantic search module adds search by meaning over everything Backstage search indexes.
• Acts as the user. An assistant can look up entities, search docs, or run a scaffolder template with the permissions of the person asking.
• Calls MCP servers. Under a credential you configure, or as each user with their own sign-in.
• Asks before it writes. The tools you choose wait for an Allow in the conversation.
• Lives where people work. A full chat page, a panel beside any page that can read that page, and a composer on the home page.
• Is managed in-app. Admins create assistants with a prompt, models, tools, and an audience; changes are live on save.

Start here

• Getting started: install, configure a provider, and talk to the first assistant.
• Chat page, panel, and homepage: the three surfaces and how to turn them on.

Configure

• Model providers
• Actions and tools
• MCP servers
• Approvals
• Permissions
• Semantic search

Operate

• Run in production: replicas, upgrades, logs, and troubleshooting.
• Security: what leaves the cluster, what is stored, and prompt injection.
• Reference: configuration keys, startup errors, HTTP routes, and frontend exports.

Extend

• Client tools: contribute a tool that runs in the browser as the user.
• Add a provider type from a backend module.

Packages

Package	Role
@drewswiredin/backstage-plugin-assistants	Frontend plugin (new frontend system)
@drewswiredin/backstage-plugin-assistants-backend	Backend plugin
@drewswiredin/backstage-plugin-assistants-common	Shared types and permissions
@drewswiredin/backstage-plugin-assistants-backend-module-semantic-search	Semantic search module

Source: github.com/drewswiredin/backstage-assistants.