Yaly

Like Backstage, but without the fuss.

A self-service developer portal that reads YAML + Markdown form definitions from a catalog folder, renders them as modern forms, and commits templated output to a target git repo.

How It Works

┌────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│  React + TW    │────▶│  ASP.NET Web API     │────▶│  Git (local  │
│  (SPA frontend)│◀────│  - Catalog loader    │     │  or GitHub)  │
└────────────────┘     │  - Scriban templates │     └──────────────┘
                       └──────────┬──────────┘
                                  │ reads
                           ┌──────┴──────┐
                           │  /catalog   │
                           │  YAML + tpl │
                           └─────────────┘

1. Define a template in catalog/ with a form.yaml and a skeleton/ folder
2. Browse templates in the web UI
3. Fill in the form — inputs are generated from the YAML definition
4. Execute — files are rendered with Scriban and committed to a git repo

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• .NET 9 SDK
• Node.js 18+

Run the backend

cd Yaly.Api
dotnet run

The API starts on http://localhost:5111.

Run the frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The dev server starts on http://localhost:5173 with API proxy to the backend.

Adding Templates

Create a folder under catalog/ with a form.yaml and a skeleton/ directory:

catalog/
  my-template/
    form.yaml          # Form definition
    skeleton/           # Template files
      README.md.tpl     # .tpl files are rendered with Scriban
      config.yaml       # Non-.tpl files are copied as-is

form.yaml

apiVersion: yaly/v1
kind: Template
metadata:
  name: my-template
  title: My Template
  description: Does something useful.
  icon: rocket          # rocket, settings, database, code, file, cloud, shield, globe
spec:
  owner: my-team
  inputs:
    - id: app_name
      title: Application Name
      type: string        # string | number | boolean | select | multiline
      required: true
      pattern: "^[a-z][a-z0-9-]*$"
    - id: environment
      title: Environment
      type: select
      options: [dev, staging, prod]
      default: dev
  output:
    target:
      type: local         # "local" or "github"
      repo: /path/to/repo
      branch: main
      path: /
      commitMessage: "feat: add {{ app_name }}"
    template: ./skeleton/

Input Types

Type	Renders As	Extra Fields
string	Text input	pattern, required
number	Number input	min, max, default
boolean	Toggle switch	default
select	Dropdown	options, default
multiline	Textarea	description

Template Syntax

Templates use Scriban (Liquid-like). All form input IDs are available as variables:

# {{ app_name }}

{{ if environment == "prod" }}Production mode{{ else }}Dev mode{{ end }}

File paths can also contain template variables. A file named {{environment}}.yaml.tpl will have both its name and content rendered.

GitHub Output

To commit via the GitHub API instead of locally:

output:
  target:
    type: github
    repo: "my-org/{{ app_name }}"
    branch: main
    commitMessage: "feat: scaffold {{ app_name }}"
  github:
    tokenEnv: GITHUB_TOKEN   # reads token from this env var

API

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/templates	List all templates
GET	/api/templates/{name}	Get template details
POST	/api/templates/{name}/execute	Execute a template
POST	/api/templates/reload	Hot-reload the catalog

Tech Stack

• Backend: ASP.NET 9, Scriban, LibGit2Sharp, Octokit, YamlDotNet
• Frontend: React 18, Vite, Tailwind CSS
• No auth (yet)