# Architecture Style Guide

## Plugin Architecture

These are a collection of architectural styles to follow when building Kibana plugins. This includes applications meant to be accessed from the Kibana sidebar, as applications are simply one type of plugin.

### File and Folder Structure

Kibana plugins, both in core and those developed independent of Kibana, should follow this basic file and folder structure:

```
plugin_root:

.
├── common/
├── public/
├── server/
└── index.js
```

<dl>
  <dt>index.js</dt>
  <dd>The entry point to your application, this file is loaded when your code is being used in Kibana. This module should simply export a function that takes the <code>kibana</code> server object and initializes your application. This is where you define things like the <em>id</em>, any <em>uiExports</em>, dependencies on other plugins and applications, any configuration, any initialization code, and the location of the <em>public</em> folder.</dd>

  <dt>public</dt>
  <dd>This folder is where you place client-side code for your application. Anything that is run in the browser belongs in here.</dd>
  <dd><strong>NOTE</strong>: An alias for this folder is created at <code>plugins/{id}</code>, where <code>id</code> is what you defined in the plugin entry point. If your application's <code>id</code> is <code>utile</code>, and you were trying to import a module from <code>public/lib/formatter.js</code>, you could import the module as <code>plugins/utile/lib/formatter</code>.
  </dd>

  <dt>server</dt>
  <dd>This folder is where server code belongs. Things like custom routes, data models, or any other code that should only be executed on the server should go here.</dd>

  <dt>common</dt>
  <dd>This folder is where code that is useful on both the client and the server belongs. A consistent example of this is constants, but this could apply to helper modules as well.</dd>
  <dd><strong>NOTE</strong>: If you'd like to avoid adding <code>../common</code> to your public code, you could use <em>webpackShims</em> to resolve the path without traversing backwards.</dd>
</dl>