LINUX FOUNDATIONCertified Backstage Associate (CBA)
The Certified Backstage Associate (CBA) certification validates your ability to build and manage standardized developer platforms with Backstage, the open-source internal developer portal. It is designed for developers, DevOps engineers, and platform engineers who want to accelerate onboarding, improve collaboration, and drive product innovation. Earning the CBA demonstrates the skills and mindset to advance your career, your team, and your organization.
482 practice questions · Updated 2026-07-30
4Domains
19Objectives
134Concepts
482Questions
CBA Curriculum
Every domain, objective, and concept the CBA exam measures.
- Local project setup
- Running the development server
- Hot reload and development workflow
- Building the project
- Testing the project
- Linting and code quality
- Type checking
- Environment configuration
- Debugging locally
- Local development environment setup
- Running Backstage in development mode
- Hot reload and iterative development
- Debugging local Backstage instances
- Configuration management for local development
- Testing local plugins and integrations
- TypeScript compilation setup
- Running the TypeScript compiler
- Handling compilation errors
- Integrating with Backstage build tooling
- Project dependency manifest
- NPM install command
- Yarn install command
- Lock file usage
- Installation output interpretation
- Dependency types
- Workspace handling
- Installation troubleshooting
- Docker basics for Backstage
- Backstage project structure for Docker
- Writing a Dockerfile for Backstage
- Multi-stage builds for Backstage
- Handling Backstage configuration in Docker
- Building the container image
- Verifying the built image
- Backstage framework overview
- Core components
- Plugin architecture
- Software Catalog
- TechDocs
- Scaffolder
- Search
- Authentication and authorization
- Configuration and customization
- Backstage Configuration Fundamentals
- Configuration File Syntax and Validation
- Environment-Specific Configuration
- Backend and Frontend Configuration
- Plugin Configuration
- Integrating External Services
- Secrets Management
- Configuration Overrides and Merging
- Troubleshooting Configuration Issues
- Production deployment prerequisites
- Backstage configuration for production
- Building and bundling Backstage
- Deploying Backstage backend services
- Deploying Backstage frontend
- Database setup and migration
- Authentication and authorization in production
- Securing Backstage deployment
- Monitoring and logging
- Backup and disaster recovery
- Upgrading and maintaining production Backstage
- Client-server architecture overview
- Backstage frontend (client)
- Backstage backend (server)
- Communication between client and server
- Plugin architecture in client-server context
- Deployment and scalability considerations
- Purpose of Backstage Catalog
- Catalog Entities and Metadata
- Catalog Ingestion and Registration
- Catalog Search and Discovery
- Catalog Ownership and Lifecycle
- Catalog Relations and Dependencies
- Catalog Usage in Developer Workflows
- Entity registration
- Catalog file structure
- Entity kinds and relationships
- Location and target
- Catalog processors
- Entity providers
- Catalog refresh and updates
- Error handling and troubleshooting
- Annotation basics
- Adding annotations
- Common annotation keys
- Annotation values
- Annotation usage
- Annotation validation
- Entity location registration
- Location YAML structure
- Registering a location via UI
- Registering a location via CLI
- Location types
- Entity discovery from locations
- Handling registration errors
- Updating and removing locations
- Entity ingestion error identification
- Ingestion failure diagnosis
- Entity descriptor validation
- Location and target troubleshooting
- Processor and provider error handling
- Entity relationship resolution
- Refresh and update troubleshooting
- Catalog configuration review
- Automated ingestion overview
- Ingestion sources and configuration
- Entity provider setup
- Scheduling and refresh
- Processing and validation
- Troubleshooting ingestion
- Frontend vs backend plugin roles
- Plugin architecture and communication
- Identifying plugin types
- Plugin architecture
- Plugin customization points
- Extending plugin functionality
- Overriding plugin components
- Configuring plugin options
- Using plugin APIs
- Plugin data and state management
- Testing customized plugins
- Locate React components in Backstage App
- Modify existing React components
- Add new React components
- Use Backstage core components and hooks
- Apply styling in Backstage React components
- Test React changes in Backstage
- Material UI component basics
- Styling with Material UI
- Theming in Backstage
- Responsive design with Material UI
- Integrating Material UI with Backstage
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Percentages reflect share of the current practice bank, not official exam weightings — no structured per-skill weight is published for CBA, so none is invented.