I'm feeling overwhelmed with template development in our version of Backstage. My team has been creating templates, and honestly, the whole process is just painful. The dry run feature is mostly broken, which makes testing really difficult since there's no way to retry or roll back changes. On top of that, the tokenization syntax is confusing and hard to test quickly. When things go wrong, we end up with orphaned resources and broken links. While some AI models don't perform well with our templates, I've found that advanced ones like Gemini and Claude can help, but they still require a lot of manual input. Also, our templates can't be split or nested, which leads to files that are 3000-5000+ lines long. I'm reaching out for any suggestions or approaches that have helped you while dealing with template development.
2 Answers
Have you been using the Load Template Directory to work on your templates? I've found that’s a solid way to tackle those small issues as you run through them and check the outputs. Also, what's the scale of your templates? Ours rarely go beyond 500 lines and still get the job done across all environments.
You might consider using containerized environments like Docker for your testing. They can mimic production conditions without risking actual resources, allowing for quicker testing and reducing the issue of orphaned resources. Implementing a version control system for your templates could also be a lifesaver, letting you roll back changes easily and see differences more clearly. Have you looked into any CI/CD integrations to automate parts of your process?
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