---
id: concepts
title: Concepts
description: Documentation on concepts that are introduced with
Spotify's docs-like-code solution in Backstage
---

This page describes concepts that are introduced with Spotify's docs-like-code
solution in Backstage.

### TechDocs Core Plugin

The TechDocs Core Plugin is an [MkDocs](https://www.mkdocs.org/) plugin created
as a wrapper around multiple MkDocs plugins and Python Markdown extensions to
standardize the configuration of MkDocs used for TechDocs.

[TechDocs Core](https://github.com/spotify/backstage/blob/master/packages/techdocs-container/techdocs-core/README.md)

### TechDocs container

The TechDocs container is a Docker container available at
[DockerHub](https://hub.docker.com/r/spotify/techdocs). It builds static HTML
pages, including stylesheets and scripts from Python flavored Markdown, through
MkDocs.

[TechDocs Container](https://github.com/spotify/backstage/blob/master/packages/techdocs-container/README.md)

### TechDocs publisher

The `techdocs-backend` plugin currently comes with one publisher -
`LocalPublish`.

[TechDocs Backend](https://github.com/spotify/backstage/tree/master/plugins/techdocs-backend)

More standalone publishers will come in the near future...

### TechDocs CLI

The TechDocs CLI was created to make it easy to write, generate and preview
documentation for publishing. Currently it mostly acts as a wrapper around the
TechDocs container and provides an easy-to-use interface for our docker
container.

[TechDocs CLI](https://github.com/spotify/backstage/blob/master/packages/techdocs-cli/README.md)

### TechDocs Reader

Documentation generated by TechDocs is generated as static HTML sites. The
TechDocs Reader was therefore created to be able to integrate pre-generated HTML
sites with the Backstage UI.

The TechDocs Reader purpose is also to open up the opportunity to integrate
TechDocs widgets for a customized full-featured TechDocs experience.
([coming soon V.3](./README.md#project-roadmap))

[TechDocs Reader](https://github.com/spotify/backstage/blob/master/plugins/techdocs/src/reader/README.md)

### Transformers

Transformers are different pieces of functionality used inside the TechDocs
Reader. The reason why transformers were introduced was to provide a way to
transform the HTML content on pre and post render (e.g. rewrite docs links or
modify css).

[Transformers API docs](https://github.com/spotify/backstage/blob/master/plugins/techdocs/src/reader/README.md)
