---
id: kibBuildingBlocks
slug: /kibana-dev-docs/building-blocks
title: Building blocks
summary: Consider these building blocks when developing your plugin.
date: 2021-02-24
tags: ['kibana','onboarding', 'dev', 'architecture']
---
When building a plugin in Kibana, there are a handful of architectural "building blocks" you can use. Some of these building blocks are "higher-level",
and some are "lower-level". High-level building blocks come
with many built-in capabilities, require less maintenance, and evolve new feature sets over time with little to no
impact on consumers. When developers use high-level building blocks, new features are exposed consistently, across all of Kibana, at the same time.
On the downside, they are not as flexible as our low-level building blocks.
Low-level building blocks
provide greater flexibility, but require more code to stitch them together into a meaningful UX. This results in higher maintenance cost for consumers and greater UI/UX variability
across Kibana.
For example, if an application is using and
,
their application would automatically support runtime fields. If the app is instead using the
lower-level , additional work would be required.
Armed with this knowledge, you can choose what works best for your use case!
# Application building blocks
## UI components
The following high-level building blocks can be rendered directly into your application UI.
### Query Bar
The provides a high-level Query Bar component that comes with support for Lucene, KQL, Saved Queries,
and .
If you would like to expose the ability to search and filter on Elasticsearch data, the Query Bar provided by the
is your go-to building block.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:QueryBar`
### Dashboard Embeddable
Add a Dashboard Embeddable directly inside your application to provide users with a set of visualizations and graphs that work seamlessly
with the . Every feature that is added to a registered
(Lens, Maps, Saved Searches and more) will be available automatically, as well as any
that are
added to the Embeddable context menu panel (for example, drilldowns, custom panel time ranges, and "share to" features).
The Dashboard Embeddable is one of the highest-level UI components you can add to your application.
**Github labels**: `Team:Presentation`, `Feature:Dashboard`
### Lens Embeddable
Check out the Lens Embeddable if you wish to show users visualizations based on Elasticsearch data without worrying about query building and chart rendering. It's built on top of the
, and integrates with
and . Using the same configuration, it's also possible to link to
a prefilled Lens editor, allowing the user to drill deeper and explore their data.
**Github labels**: `Team:KibanaApp`, `Feature:Lens`
### Map Embeddable
Check out the Map Embeddable if you wish to embed a map in your application.
**Github labels**: `Team:Geo`
## Searching
### Index Patterns
are a high-level, space-aware abstraction layer that sits
above Data Streams and Elasticsearch indices. Index Patterns provide users the
ability to define and customize the data they wish to search and filter on, on a per-space basis. For example, users can specify a set of indices,
and they can customize the field list with runtime fields, formatting options and custom labels.
Index Patterns are used in many other high-level building blocks so we highly recommend you consider this building block for your search needs.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:Index Patterns`
### Search Source
is a high-level search service offered by the
. It requires an
, and abstracts away the raw ES DSL and search endpoint. Internally
it uses the ES . Use Search Source if you need to query data
from Elasticsearch, and you aren't already using one of the high-level UI Components that handles this internally.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:Search`
### Search Strategies
Search Strategies are a low-level building block that abstracts away search details, like what REST endpoint is being called. The ES Search Strategy
is a very lightweight abstraction layer that sits just above querying ES with the elasticsearch-js client. Other search stragies are offered for other
languages, like EQL and SQL. These are very low-level building blocks so expect a lot of glue work to make these work with the higher-level abstractions.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:Search`
### Expressions
Expressions are a low-level building block that can be used if you have advanced search needs that requiring piping results into additional functionality, like
joining and manipulating data. Lens and Canvas are built on top of Expressions. Most developers should be able to use
or
, rather than need to access the Expression language directly.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:ExpressionLanguage`
## Saved Objects
should be used if you need to persist application-level information. If you were building a TODO
application, each TODO item would be a `Saved Object`. Saved objects come pre-wired with support for bulk export/import, security features like space sharing and
space isolation, and tags.
**Github labels**: `Team:Core`, `Feature:Saved Objects`
# Integration building blocks
Use the following building blocks to create an inter-connected, cross-application, holistic Kibana experience. These building blocks allow you to expose functionality
that promotes your own application into other applications, as well as help developers of other applications integrate into your app.
## UI Actions & Triggers
Integrate custom actions into other applications by registering UI Actions attached to existing triggers. For example, the Maps
application could register a UI Action called "View in Maps" to appear any time the user clicked a geo field to filter on.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:UIActions`
## Embeddables
Embeddables help you integrate your application with the Dashboard application. Register your custom UI Widget as an Embeddable and users will
be able to add it as a panel on a Dashboard. With a little extra work, it can also be exposed in Canvas workpads.
**Github labels**: `Team:AppServices`, `Feature:Embeddables`