Skip to main content
Gitpod can integrate with internal developer portals (IDP) such as Backstage and Port, supercharging your centralized software catalog with a better developer experience.

​
Why Internal Developer Portals and Gitpod are complementary

CDEs and Internal Developer Portals are different independent solutions, however they are also very complementary. An internal developer portal is your “lense” into your internal platform. It’s where new joiners go when they start in a company, and it’s where developers go to discover platform services, or for help when they’re stuck. However, a huge challenge with portals is how they’re often not very “action-oriented”. Developers go to a portal and see their service is down, a build is failing, or that a task has been assigned to them, but the next step means now leaving the portal. With a CDE, you can automate many of the steps that developers would take next when viewing information in an internal developer portal. For instance, when a developer needs to start a new service, they can open a workspace. When there is a production incident, it’s easy to spin up a workspace with all the necessary tools and immediately start debugging and applying fixes.

​
Benefits of Gitpod and an Internal Developer Portal

1. Standardisation Make reproducible and controllable development environments available to your entire organisation. Developers can now seamlessly move between teams or contribute to other projects in the organization. During an incident, it’s easy to spin up a service to start debugging due to the standardization applied to your development environments. 2. Reduce cognitive load Abstract away complexities associated with setting up and managing development environments, allowing developers to get in their flow state–coding. 3. Instant onboarding Eliminate lengthy development environment setup that are traditionally required for onboarding new developers on projects, and enable developers to contribute and ship code on their first day of work, or on a new project. 4. Golden Paths Tailor your Gitpod CDE setup to fit the needs of the specific project or service you are viewing in your internal developer portal. For example, you can configure your CDE to open with an editor best suited to the project.

​
Ways to integrate your Internal Developer Portal with Gitpod

Whether you’re using a more off-the-shelf solution for your portal, like Backstage. Or, you have your own homegrown portal, Gitpod can be integrated in many ways: Gitpod API - The API allows you to programmatically interact with Gitpod. You can enable tasks such as creating workspaces and managing user settings. Gitpod CLI - The CLI is designed for those who prefer terminal-based operations. You can perform tasks such as managing workspaces and viewing logs. Gitpod URL - Append your URL with parameters you need during workspace creation to set workspace options like class or editor.

​
Resources