External plugin development [external-plugin-development]

::::{important} The {{kib}} plugin interfaces are in a state of constant development. We cannot provide backwards compatibility for plugins due to the high rate of change. {{kib}} enforces that the installed plugins match the version of {{kib}} itself. Plugin developers will have to release a new version of their plugin for each new {{kib}} release as a result.

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Most developers who contribute code directly to the {{kib}} repo are writing code inside plugins, so our Contributing docs are the best place to start. However, there are a few differences when developing plugins outside the {{kib}} repo. These differences are covered here.

Important differences from in-repo plugins

If you are coming from the in-repo plugin docs, note the following:

• Location. External plugins live in a plugins/ directory at the root of your {{kib}} checkout. This directory is gitignored — your plugin is not tracked alongside the {{kib}} sources.
• Manifest. External plugins use a flat kibana.json manifest (a different schema than the in-repo kibana.jsonc). Use node scripts/generate_plugin to scaffold one with the correct format.
• Build. Browser bundles for external plugins are not built by the {{kib}} optimizer. Run yarn dev --watch from inside the plugin directory in a dedicated terminal while yarn start runs in another — see Plugin tooling.

Topics

• Plugin tooling
• Functional Tests for Plugins outside the {{kib}} repo
• Internationalization (i18n)
• Testing {{kib}} Plugins