[[dashboard-import-api]]
== Dashboard Import API

The dashboard import/export APIs allow people to import dashboards along with
all of their corresponding saved objects such as visualizations, saved
searches, and index patterns.

Traditionally, developers would perform this level of integration by writing
documents directly to the `.kibana` index. *Do not do this!* Writing directly
to the `.kibana` index is not safe and it _will_ result in corrupted data that
permanently breaks Kibana in a future version.

* <<dashboard-import-api-import>>
* <<dashboard-import-api-export>>

include::dashboard-import/import.asciidoc[]
include::dashboard-import/export.asciidoc[]
