Exemplar-y Backstage Templates - Creating Maintainable Templates with Exemplars

This 17-minute conference talk by Brent Swisher from ITHAKA at a CNCF event explores innovative solutions to common Backstage template maintenance challenges. Learn how ITHAKA developed "exemplar" templates to overcome the frustrating issues of outdated dependencies, CVEs, and broken tests that typically plague Backstage templates within days of creation. Discover their approach using a custom action that creates templates from running, deployable example projects, allowing the use of standard tooling like Yarn and Renovate for proactive maintenance. Follow Swisher's templating journey and gain practical insights on implementing "exemplar" projects for your own templates, making the development cycle more efficient and sustainable.