Customizing Skill Exchange

Introduction

We understand that the default terminology within Skill Exchange is not one size fits all. To help adjust Skill Exchange's terminology to fit what makes sense for your organization, we've created and enabled some features that allow you to customize Skill Exchange.

Setting Up Custom Translations

Skill Exchange uses Backstage's internationalization feature to customize the frontend text. You can customize various text elements throughout the application by providing your own translations. All available translation keys are listed below.

note

Custom translations only affect the frontend text. If you're looking to also customize url feature paths, please refer to the Customizing Skill Exchange Feature Paths section.

packages/app/src/App.tsx

import { TranslationBlueprint } from '@backstage/frontend-plugin-api';
import { skillExchangeTranslationRef } from '@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange/alpha';

const skillExchangeCustomTranslations = TranslationBlueprint.make({
  name: 'skill-exchange-custom-translations',
  params: {
    resource: createTranslationMessages({
      ref: skillExchangeTranslationRef,
      messages: {
        // Your custom translations here
        'navigation.hacks': 'Jams',
        'homePage.title': 'Find others who can help',
        // ... more translations
      },
    }),
  },
});

export const app = createApp({
  features: [
    createFrontendModule({
      pluginId: 'app',
      extensions: [
        // ... extensions,
        skillExchangeCustomTranslations,
        // ... other extensions,
      ],
    }),
  ],
});

Home

Home Page

Translation references for Home Page

#	Key	Default Text
1	navigation.embeds	Embeds
2	navigation.mentors	Mentors
3	navigation.hacks	Hacks
4	homePage.title	Find people who can help
5	homePage.search.placeholder	Search for people by discipline, skill, or team
6	homePage.cards.embeds.title	Start an embed
7	homePage.cards.embeds.details	Discover short-term opportunities to learn from another team or share your expertise.
8	homePage.cards.mentors.title	Find mentorships and pairing
9	homePage.cards.mentors.details	Problem-solve with a pair or search for the perfect mentor/mentee match. Sometimes the best learning happens one-on-one.
10	homePage.cards.hacks.title	Join a hack
11	homePage.cards.hacks.details	Find a project to hack on, or a team to get to know. Use your skills to build something fun and expand what's possible.

Embeds

Embeds Page

Translation references for Embeds Page

#	Key	Default Text
1	navigation.embeds	Embeds
2	navigation.mentors	Mentors
3	navigation.hacks	Hacks
4	embedsPage.title	Embeds
5	embedsPage.search.placeholder	Search embeds
6	embedsPage.search.filters.myEmbeds	My embeds
7	embedsPage.cards.chips.embed	Embed
8	embedsPage.cards.embedDetails	Embed details

Mentors

Mentorships Page

Translation references for Mentorships Page

#	Key	Default Text
1	navigation.embeds	Embeds
2	navigation.mentors	Mentors
3	navigation.hacks	Hacks
4	mentorsPage.navigation.events	Events
5	mentorsPage.navigation.mentorships	Mentorships
6	mentorsPage.mentorships.search.placeholder	Search mentorships
7	mentorsPage.mentorships.search.filters.myMentorships	My mentorships
8	mentorsPage.mentorships.search.filters.findAMentor	Find a mentor
9	mentorsPage.mentorships.search.filters.beAMentor	Be a mentor
10	mentorsPage.mentorships.search.filters.lookingToPair	Looking to pair
11	mentorsPage.mentorships.results.sections.lookingToPair.title	Looking to pair
12	mentorsPage.mentorships.results.sections.offeringToMentor.title	Offering to mentor
13	mentorsPage.mentorships.results.sections.lookingForMentor.title	Looking for a mentor

Hacks

Hacks Page

Translation references for Hacks Page

#	Key	Default Text
1	navigation.embeds	Embeds
2	navigation.mentors	Mentors
3	navigation.hacks	Hacks
4	hacksPage.navigation.events	Events
5	hacksPage.navigation.hacks	Hacks
6	hacksPage.hacks.search.filters.myHacks	My Hacks

Customizing Skill Exchange Feature Paths

Skill Exchange uses feature paths to determine the url path for each feature. At default, feature paths are set to embeds, mentors, and hacks. You can customize these paths by providing your own feature paths in your backend app-config.yaml file.

app-config.yaml

skillExchange:
  embedsPath: 'remixes' # default: 'embeds'
  mentorsPath: 'pairings' # default: 'mentors'
  hacksPath: 'jams' # default: 'hacks'

The example configuration above will change the url paths for each feature to the following:

• Embeds -> http://localhost:3000/skill-exchange/remixes
• Mentors -> http://localhost:3000/skill-exchange/pairings
• Hacks -> http://localhost:3000/skill-exchange/jams

Customizing Skill Exchange Notifications

Skill Exchange supports two notification channels that can be customized to match your organization's communication style and preferences. You can tailor notification messages, formatting, and content for either Backstage's native notification system and/or Slack integration.

Customizing Backstage Notifications

Backstage notifications appear directly within your Backstage instance and can be customized to match your organization's terminology and communication style.

Prerequisites

Before customizing Backstage notifications, you must first enable Backstage notifications. Please refer to the Backstage Notifications setup section for detailed configuration instructions.

Example: Customizing Embed Notifications for Backstage Notifications

The following example shows how to customize embeds notification messages. Since we're only providing a custom embeds message builder, the default message builders for mentors and hacks will continue to be used. For detailed information on available methods and customization options, refer to the EmbedsMessageBuilder, MentorsMessageBuilder, and HacksMessageBuilder documentation.

src/customNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder.ts

import { DefaultNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder } from '@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange-backend';
import { InquiryMessageArgs } from '@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange-node/alpha';

export class CustomNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder extends DefaultNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder {
  // Override other methods as needed
  buildInquiryMessage({
    postTitle,
    sender,
    customMessage,
  }: InquiryMessageArgs): string {
    return `${sender} is interested in your Embed ${postTitle}. They sent you a message: ${customMessage}`;
  }
}

Once you've created your custom message builder, you can register it with Skill Exchange using the extension point.

Customizing Slack Notifications

Slack notifications appear directly within your Slack workspace and can be customized to match your organization's terminology and communication style.

Prerequisites

Before customizing Slack notifications, you must first enable Slack integration. Please refer to the Slack Notifications setup section for detailed configuration instructions.

Example: Customizing Embed Notifications for Slack

The following example shows how to customize embeds notification messages. Since we're only providing a custom embeds message builder, the default message builders for mentors and hacks will continue to be used. For detailed information on available methods and customization options, refer to the EmbedsMessageBuilder, MentorsMessageBuilder, and HacksMessageBuilder documentation.

note

For message formatting, visit Slack's documentation for more information.

src/customSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder.ts

import { DefaultSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder } from '@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange-backend';
import { InquiryMessageArgs } from '@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange-node/alpha';

export class CustomSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder extends DefaultSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder {
  // Override other methods as needed
  buildInquiryMessage({
    postUrl,
    postTitle,
    sender,
    customMessage,
  }: InquiryMessageArgs): string {
    return `
      :wave: <@${sender}> is interested in your Embed *<${postUrl}|${postTitle}>*.

      They sent you a message:
      > ${customMessage}

      :rocket: *Ready to collaborate?* Reply to this message to start the conversation!
    `;
  }
}

Once you've created your custom message builder, you can register it with Skill Exchange using the extension point.

Registering Custom Message Builders

Once you've created your custom message builders, register them with Skill Exchange by using the skillExchangeMessageBuilderExtensionPoint extension point.

You can register builders for both Slack and Backstage Notifications in the same module.

src/customSkillExchangeMessageBuilderModule.ts

import { createBackendModule } from '@backstage/backend-plugin-api';
import { skillExchangeMessageBuilderExtensionPoint } from '@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange-node/alpha';
import { CustomSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder } from './customSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder';
import { CustomNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder } from './customNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder';

export default createBackendModule({
  pluginId: 'skill-exchange',
  moduleId: 'custom-message-builder',
  register(env) {
    env.registerInit({
      deps: {
        messageBuilder: skillExchangeMessageBuilderExtensionPoint,
      },
      async init({ messageBuilder }) {
        // Register custom embeds message builder for Slack
        messageBuilder.setSlackEmbedsMessageBuilder(
          new CustomEmbedsMessageBuilder(),
        );

        // Register custom embeds message builder for Backstage Notifications
        messageBuilder.setNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder(
          new CustomNotificationEmbedsMessageBuilder(),
        );

        // You can also register custom builders for other features
        // messageBuilder.setSlackMentorsMessageBuilder(new CustomMentorsMessageBuilder());
        // messageBuilder.setSlackHacksMessageBuilder(new CustomHacksMessageBuilder());
        // messageBuilder.setNotificationMentorsMessageBuilder(new CustomNotificationMentorsMessageBuilder());
        // messageBuilder.setNotificationHacksMessageBuilder(new CustomNotificationHacksMessageBuilder());
      },
    });
  },
});

src/index.ts

import { createBackend } from '@backstage/backend-defaults';

const backend = createBackend();
// ...
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-notifications-backend'));

backend.add(import('@spotify/backstage-plugin-skill-exchange-backend'));
backend.add(
  import('@spotify/backstage-plugin-search-backend-module-skill-exchange'),
);
backend.add(import('./customSkillExchangeMessageBuilderModule'));
// ...

backend.start();