| name | saved-objects-style-review |
| description | Kibana Saved Objects registration and style review guidance. Use when creating, changing, or reviewing Saved Object changes involving savedObjects.registerType, mappings, modelVersions, root mappings, or Saved Objects type definitions. |
Saved Objects Style Review
Use this skill when reviewing or changing Saved Object type registrations, especially code that calls savedObjects.registerType, edits mappings, or changes modelVersions.
Type Registration
Register Saved Object types systematically during plugin setup. We want to encourage—and, where possible, enforce—unconditional savedObjects.registerType calls rather than gating registration behind a configuration parameter or feature flag.
If registration is conditional, our CI Saved Object check is unlikely to detect the type. The check builds the current registry by starting Kibana; when the gate is off in CI, the type is never registered and the check cannot validate its definition or subsequent updates to mappings, modelVersions, or schemas. That bypasses safeguards that catch invalid migrations before they reach production, where bad changes can corrupt stored data or prevent Kibana from starting.
For early iteration that genuinely requires conditional registration, follow the documented WIP-type workflows in docs/extend/key-concepts/saved-objects/validate.md rather than ad hoc feature-flag gating.
Mapping Mindset
Saved Object mappings are search indexes, not a complete schema. Once added and released, mappings cannot be removed. Add mappings only for fields that Kibana must search, filter, sort, or aggregate on. Stored attributes do not need mappings just because they exist in the Saved Object payload.
Default to dynamic: false for object mappings so Elasticsearch stores unmapped attributes without indexing them. Do not use enabled: false or index: false; those choices are hard to change later.
