Previously, include plugin configuration files would overwrite existing files. With this update, Red Hat Developer Hub will merge configurations from existing include files, only overwriting specific keys while preserving keys defined in existing include files, mirroring the behavior for the plugins key.

Red Hat Developer Hub 1.7 adds dynamic plugin dependency management, so that the Operator can manage Kubernetes resources required by plugins.

For more information, see Dynamic plugin dependency management

With this update, Orchestrator plugins with dependencies are added to the RHDH profile. The Orchestrator plugin is disabled by default. When you enable the Orchestrator plugin, it will deploy dependencies and work out of the box on RHDH.

With this update, the @redhat-developer/red-hat-developer-hub-theme package is replaced with the plugin version from the rhdh-plugins repository to improve theme integration and visual consistency. Minor UI enhancements include updated border radius on cards.

This release includes several enhancements to improve the usability and consistency of the RBAC experience:

These changes aim to create a more intuitive and seamless role management workflow.

In this release, Developer Hub administrators can configure dynamic plugins directly within the Extensions UI. Administrators can now enable, disable, install, or edit the configuration of dynamic plugins on the Extensions Details Page.

This is an opt-in feature that must be enabled by configuration, and it is intended for testing and development environments only; it is not recommended for production use.

This release requires a single replica deployment and uses a persistent volume claim (PVC) for the dynamic plugin configuration file. The Developer Hub backend does not automatically restart when you save configuration changes. You must restart the Developer Hub application for any dynamic plugin configuration updates to take effect.

Backend dynamic plugins have reached General Availability (GA). A new command-line tool, @red-hat-developer-hub/cli (rhdh-cli), has been released for building and packaging these plugins. As a result, the @janus-idp/cli is now officially deprecated. All users should migrate their build processes to @red-hat-developer-hub/cli to maintain support and receive future updates.

RHDH 1.7 introduces the new Administrator Quick Start guide, a feature designed to streamline the initial setup and configuration process for platform engineers. This guided, interactive experience appears automatically on an administrator's first login, providing clear, step-by-step instructions for essential platform tasks. The goal is to significantly reduce onboarding time and help you configure your RHDH instance with confidence.

Quick start tracks your progress, offers context-aware help that follows you across configuration pages, and can be dismissed and reopened from the header at any time. This guide ensures a confident, efficient, and structured onboarding experience. Note that when permissions are enabled, this feature is currently available for administrators only, with support for other roles planned for future versions.

With this release, you can display a user avatar in the profile dropdown in the global header.

With this update, the look and feel of Developer Hub has been updated to better match the visual style of PatternFly 6 and improve alignment with the {company} product portfolio.

RHDH has been enhanced to provide crucial traceability, allowing users to easily identify the template version used to create a specific component. This enhancement helps determine if an older entity needs updating or if a bug is linked to a particular template version.

Scaffolder templates can now be versioned using the backstage.io/template-version annotation and the catalog:template:version action. When used with the catalog:template:version action, the the annotation of the template is applied to the generated catalog entity.

Red Hat Developer Hub now supports high availability setups in Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). This enhancement allows the deployment to scale beyond a single replica, ensuring the application remains operational and accessible even in the event of failures or disruptions.

For more information, see Configuring high availability in Red Hat Developer Hub.

In this release, the Adoption Insights plugin is fully supported and enabled by default. The Adoption Insights plugin provides key metrics and trends to help you understand Developer Hub usage.

If you have an existing Adoption Insights plugin custom configuration with GitHub Container registry images already set up, you can upgrade to the latest version to omit configurations using GitHub Container registry images.

For more information, see Configuring the Adoption Insights in Red Hat Developer Hub.

The Developer Hub community plugins have been updated to Backstage version 1.39.

Previously, the Red Hat Developer Hub would fail to start if a specified include file in dynamic plugins configuration did not exist. This update addresses the issue by logging a warning and skipping the file if it is not found.

In this release, the following Home page cards are added:

For more information, see Customizing the Home page cards.

Previously, the Operator could automatically detect and mount an optional Secret named dynamic-plugins-npmrc to configure a custom npm registry.

With this update, you can do any of the following workarounds:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: dynamic-plugins-npmrc
type: Opaque
stringData:
  .npmrc: |
    @my-company:registry=https://my-company.example.com
    //<registry-url>:_authToken=<auth-token>
---
apiVersion: rhdh.redhat.com/v1alpha3
kind: Backstage
metadata:
  name: my-rhdh
spec:
  application:
    dynamicPluginsConfigMapName: my-dynamic-plugins-rhdh
  # --- BEGIN WORKAROUND: Ensure you have the volumes, volume mounts and NPM_CONFIG_USERCONFIG env var listed below
  deployment:
    patch:
      spec:
        template:
          spec:
            initContainers:
              - name: install-dynamic-plugins
                volumeMounts:
                  - mountPath: /opt/app-root/src/.my-dynamic-plugins-npmrc.dynamic-plugins
                    name: my-dynamic-plugins-npmrc
                env:
                  - name:
                  - name: NPM_CONFIG_USERCONFIG
                    # path before .npmrc should be the same as in the mountPath above
                    # file name .npmrc should be the same as key in the dynamic-plugins-npmrc secret above
                    value: /opt/app-root/src/.my-dynamic-plugins-npmrc.dynamic-plugins/.npmrc
            volumes:
              - name: my-dynamic-plugins-npmrc
                secret:
                  secretName: dynamic-plugins-npmrc
  # --- END WORKAROUND

Backstage CR versions v1alpha1 and v1alpha2 are deprecated in 1.7 and will be removed in 1.9

To enhance performance, decrease image size, and reduce maintenance, the method of including "wrapped" dynamic plugins within the main Red Hat Developer Hub container image is being deprecated as of release 1.7.0. We are transitioning to a model where all dynamic plugins will be distributed as independent OCI artifacts.

For the 1.7.0 release, this is a deprecation notice only; there are no breaking changes, and all previously bundled plugins will continue to be bundled. However, we encourage customers to prepare for the removal of wrappers in a future release by beginning to use the new OCI artifacts in 1.8.0. Documentation will be updated to guide this migration.

For more information, see Loading a plugin packaged as an OCI image.

In this release, a new command-line tool, @red-hat-developer-hub/cli, has been released for building and packaging dynamic plugins. As a result, @janus-idp/cli is now officially deprecated. All users should migrate their build processes to @red-hat-developer-hub/cli to maintain support and receive future updates.

Red Hat Developer Lightspeed for Red Hat Developer Hub is available as a Developer Preview feature in Red Hat Developer Hub, as a virtual assistant powered by generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) designed for RHDH. The assistant offers in-depth insights into RHDH, including its wide range of capabilities. You can interact with this assistant to explore and learn more about RHDH in greater detail. For more information, see Red Hat Developer Lightspeed for Red Hat Developer Hub.

This release includes the Orchestrator plugin version from 1.6. As a result, the latest feature set is not yet available. The Orchestrator plugin will be updated to the latest feature set in a future release.