Introducing a new architecture for Kibana

Kibana has undergone a significant re-architecture to introduce the Kibana development platform, a project aimed at enhancing the scalability and efficiency of plugin development. Originally built with a simple architecture using familiar JavaScript libraries, Kibana expanded rapidly, leading to challenges in development performance and integration. To address these issues, the new platform emphasizes a consistent architecture across client and server code, isolated plugins with explicit APIs, and framework-agnostic APIs, allowing for flexibility and future growth. The platform adopts a hybrid approach, maintaining a single artifact deployment while promoting encapsulation between components to improve development velocity and stability. Core services provide foundational APIs for plugins, while plugins themselves can register functionalities and integrate with others through explicit contracts, facilitating rapid feature development. The redesign also simplifies the process for developers by unifying lifecycle stages and patterns across server and client environments, resulting in improved navigation speed and enhanced capabilities for Kibana users. As Kibana transitions to this new platform, developers are encouraged to adapt their plugins to ensure compatibility with upcoming versions, with extensive documentation and support available.