fix: DynamoDB Table Template not visible in Backstage Create page #727

Problem

The DynamoDB Table Template ACK with KRO (ddb-table-template-ack-kro) never appears in the Backstage Create page after participants follow the lab instructions in Module 1 Section 4 (Generate Backstage Templates for DynamoDB).

The lab instructs participants to register the template via Backstage's catalog import UI by providing the URL to platform/backstage/customtemplates/catalog-info.yaml. The Analyze step appears to succeed (the entity is shown), but clicking Import silently fails — no new Location entity is created in the catalog, and the template never appears.

Confirmed by checking /backstage/catalog?filters[kind]=location — after 8+ hours and multiple import attempts, no Location entity pointing to customtemplates/catalog-info.yaml was ever created.

Root Cause Analysis

The Backstage catalog import UI submits a /blob/main/... GitLab URL. The frontend Analyze step works because it makes a direct HTTP request. However, the backend catalog processor silently fails to store the Location entity and cannot resolve the relative target path (./ddb-table/template.yaml) from the GitLab blob URL.

All other working Location entities in this workshop (S3, Rust CI/CD, Java CI/CD) were created via Backstage scaffold actions that use the configured GitLab integration directly — not via the manual import UI. The manual import path is not reliable for this GitLab instance.

Proposed Fix

Add ../customtemplates/ddb-table/template.yaml directly to the existing working Location entity in platform/backstage/templates/catalog-info.yaml. This file is already continuously polled by Backstage's catalog processor, so the template will be picked up automatically on the next poll cycle (~1-2 min after deploy).

# platform/backstage/templates/catalog-info.yaml
spec:
  targets:
    # ... existing targets ...
    - ./platform-entities.yaml
    - ../customtemplates/ddb-table/template.yaml  # add this line

Verification

Fix tested end-to-end in workshop environment:

• Template loads at /backstage/create/templates/default/ddb-table-template-ack-kro ✅
• Template submitted with Table Name: peeks-table, Environment: dev ✅
• All 7 Backstage stages completed (GitLab repo created, ArgoCD app created) ✅
• peeks-table DynamoDB table confirmed in aws dynamodb list-tables ✅

Affected File

platform/backstage/templates/catalog-info.yaml