kibana-plugin-dev

Kibana Plugin Development

This skill provides comprehensive knowledge for developing Kibana plugins across all major subsystems.

Plugin Architecture Overview

Kibana plugins consist of:

• Server-side (server/): Routes, saved objects, background tasks
• Client-side (public/): React UI, embeddables, applications
• Common (common/): Shared types and constants

Plugin Lifecycle

// server/plugin.ts
export class MyPlugin implements Plugin {
  setup(core: CoreSetup) {
    // Register routes, saved objects, capabilities
    // Called once at startup
  }
  
  start(core: CoreStart) {
    // Access other plugins' start contracts
    // Called after all plugins are set up
  }
  
  stop() {
    // Cleanup
  }
}

Key Principles

1. Register everything in setup(), not start()
2. Use await context.core in route handlers (async since 8.1)
3. Export types for other plugins to consume
4. Use common/ for shared code between server and browser

Saved Objects

Saved Objects are Kibana's primary persistence layer for plugin data that needs to be managed, imported/exported, migrated across versions, and scoped to Kibana Spaces. Use Saved Objects when your data belongs to the Kibana application layer (configurations, user-created resources, plugin settings) rather than raw Elasticsearch data.

When to use Saved Objects vs plain ES indices:

• Use Saved Objects when: data needs space-scoping, import/export, version migrations, references to other Kibana objects, or management UI integration
• Use plain ES indices when: data is high-volume, time-series, search-heavy, or doesn't need Kibana management features

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Type Registration

Register custom saved object types in the server plugin's setup() method:

// server/saved_objects/my_custom_type.ts
import { SavedObjectsType } from '@kbn/core/server';

export const MY_CUSTOM_TYPE = 'my-plugin-config';

export const myCustomType: SavedObjectsType = {
  name: MY_CUSTOM_TYPE,
  hidden: false,
  namespaceType: 'single', // 'single' | 'multiple' | 'agnostic'
  mappings: {
    dynamic: false,
    properties: {
      title: { type: 'text' },
      name: { type: 'keyword' },
      description: { type: 'text' },
      enabled: { type: 'boolean' },
      priority: { type: 'integer' },
      config: { type: 'object', dynamic: false },
      tags: { type: 'keyword' },
      created_at: { type: 'date' },
      updated_at: { type: 'date' },
      created_by: { type: 'keyword' },
    },
  },
  management: {
    importableAndExportable: true,
    icon: 'gear',
    defaultSearchField: 'title',
    getTitle(obj) {
      return obj.attributes.title || obj.attributes.name;
    },
    getInAppUrl(obj) {
      return {
        path: `/app/myPlugin#/config/${obj.id}`,
        uiCapabilitiesPath: 'myPlugin.show',
      };
    },
  },
  migrations: {
    // Version-keyed migration functions
    '1.1.0': migrateV1_1_0,
    '2.0.0': migrateV2_0_0,
  },
};